Before It Explodes
by Miss Poirot
Summary: The Wraiths construct a deadly super-hive, Teyla disappears, Atlantis is in danger. Takes place after 3X02, the happenings are AU. Pairings: McKay/Sheppard, Caldwell/Weir, Michael/Teyla/Ronon Warnings: violence, mild slash
1. Prologue

_The verbatim quotes from SGA I got from the link of TwizTV__._

_Million thanx for for her wonderful betawork and for Kercsi for her good advice and kind help!_

* * *

**Prologue**

The joyful, tempting sunbeams were glimmering on the bluish silver metal pillars of the walls of the gym hall. The sultry, lazy silence was broken only by the rustling of two slim figures moving softly in slow circles. Teyla was coaching Michael in Athosian hand to hand combat techniques. As she did each move, she told him what to do. "Defend. Defend. Parry, strike..."

So far he fended off each punch but now she whirled, her arms moving almost too fast to see, and, fending off his blows, dropped to one knee and punched him in one knee. As he cried out in pain, she rose up quickly and, standing on one leg while holding him by the arms, brought her other thigh up and rammed it into his stomach. While he was still off balance, she spun him around and slammed her leg into his chest, knocking him to the floor.

"It is all about catching your opponent off balance," she explained.

Michael got up onto his knees, and looked up at her. "You succeeded!" He got to his feet out of breath.

"Now you try."

Michael laughed ruefully. "I can't do that move."

"Oh, yes, you can."

"You keep saying I'm a good fighter." He panted.

"You are. Very good."

Michael shrugged. "Alright."

He started to attack her, doing the same moves that she had just taught him. Although she fended off each blow, he was obviously starting to get the hang of it. Teyla came at him. They parried for a few moments, then she did a move which she expected would get through his defense, but he blocked her. He laughed delightedly. Teyla came at him again. This time as she tried to bring her knee up, he grabbed it, stopping the blow. She spun and tried to slam her leg across his stomach again, but this time Michael was ready, grabbed it, and used her momentum to slam her down to the floor on her back. He followed her down, shoving his hand onto her neck to hold her down. They stared into each others' eyes. Teyla felt a strange, happy shiver running up on her spine.

Michael laughed gleefully. "Woo! Wow, are you alright? I can't believe I..."

A pair of hands grabbed him from behind. It was Ronon, who hauled him off Teyla, dragged him across the gym floor, and slammed him hard against the wall by the throat, roaring in rage. "Keep your hands off her!"

Teyla scrambled to her feet. She was incredibly displeased because of Ronon's appearance. She wished he had been anywhere else just not there. In spite of her disappointment, she told him calmly, "Ronon! We were sparring as part of his physical therapy. Let him go."

Ronon continued to hold Michael against the wall, half strangling him.

"NOW!" she shouted at him.

Ronon, his face contorted in a snarl, released Michael, and left the room.

Michael touched his aching throat. "I'm sorry," he muttered.

Teyla looked at him, and deep sadness appeared in her eyes.

* * *

They were standing around a table, some of the crew of the Daedalus, Doctor Weir, Teyla and a few of the scientists. They were discussing the new problems. The dubious alliance with the Wraith queen and Michael broke into pieces with the betrayal of the Wraiths. Now there was the situation that two Wraith hives were hyper-flying straight to the Earth. Doctor Weir asked Caldwell to hunt them down with the Daedalus, but he knew that the ship was not in the best condition.

„Look, Doctor Weir, I wanna go after these bastards as much as you do, but the Daedalus is in no position to fight right now. Our shields are severely depleted and several decks are inaccessible. Even if we could catch up with them, I don't know how long we'd last."

"That is why I'm committing the Orion as well," she replied firmly.

"It was recalled the moment the Wraith computer virus was revealed," Teyla added.

"And it's in no better shape than the Daedalus," Caldwell retorted.

"It will fly, and by the time you reach the hive ships, it should also be able to fight." That was Elizabeth Weir's only response.

Caldwell felt coldness crawling in his veins. "And if it isn't?"

Elizabeth stepped towards him, her face determined.

"Currently, Stargate Command has no vessels capable of engaging the hive ships before they reach Earth. They cannot be allowed to get that far, Steven." It hit him with painful heaviness that she used his first name instead of his official one. He swallowed.

"You know what you're asking me to do."

"I do." Her tone was resolute.

Caldwell looked away, because he felt unable to stand the sight of her emotionless, rigid face. "There're still repairs that need to be made," he said quietly.

Teyla turned her eyes to the floor, as she realized that it may well have been a suicide mission. Elizabeth kept her gaze on Caldwell. "Do what you have to do."

Caldwell nodded and walked away. Till this moment, he believed that Elizabeth Weir had a secret understanding for him, and in spite of their usual rivalry about giving orders, he hoped that she held the same regard and esteem for him that he felt for her.

"You are an idiot," he thought to himself bitterly. "You have never been good at finding out people's feelings, but how the hell could you expect _that woman_ to be well disposed towards you with a hidden corner of her heart? She is sending you to die at the battlefield without even the tiniest sign of a wince on her face. Well, that's the worst ending of a human relationship." As he reached an empty passage, he cursed out loud, and hit the shiny metal with his fist so hard that he felt the skin split on his fingers.

* * *

3 months later.

John Sheppard had his golf-set bag on his shoulder, intending to go for a few hits at the great balcony in the upper part of the city-complex, but he stopped to have a quick look at what Rodney McKay was doing in the lab. So now he was standing in the doorway, casually leaning against one of the huge computers from Earth that buzzed on the wall with its plenty of shimmering buttons and lights.

"Ain't it our free afternoon?" Sheppard asked, smiling as McKay typed some memos at his palmtop.

"Ssshhh!" Rodney hissed angrily. "I'm concentrating." He waved indignantly in the direction of John to make him stay silent, and tried to catch the train of his previous thoughts again, but he had to see that he had completely fallen out of his calculations.

"Okay, you can disturb me now," he sighed, and turned his chair towards him. "What was your question?"

"I wanted to know if you felt like joining me for a game of golf."

"No. That was definitely not your question." Rodney shook his head. "You asked something else. I was listening more or less."

Sheppard smirked.

"Now you must tell me what your first question was!" McKay demanded.

"Oh, so you are curious, aren't you? Why didn't you listen fully?"

"You asked something tricky and wicked! I know." Rodney murmured.

John's smile deepened. "It was an innocent question."

"I don't believe you. What was it?"

Sheppard decided to go on with his game, and he was ready with a canny reply, but at the same time as he opened his mouth, Rodney's radio switched on.

"Rodney McKay to the Control Room," the order echoed in the lab.

"Okay, I need to go now," Rodney got up, "but you must not forget your question. We will speak about it later."

"I'm coming with you," John joined him. "I'm interested to know what this urgent call from the Control Room was."

They hurried to the elevator at the end of the outer-corridor, and Rodney pointed at the nearest spot to the Control Room on the shining map of Atlantis. The appliance teleported them to the location he gave. As they reached the Control Room they could see Elizabeth Weir standing at a panel, staring anxiously in front of her. The way she frowned and crossed her arms tightly made them certain that their afternoon just got spoiled.

"So, what's up?" Sheppard went to her.

"John, what are you doing here?" she asked surprised. "It's your free afternoon."

"We were planning to go for a game of golf with Rodney when he got your order to come here, so I joined him..."

"No, we weren't!" Rodney snapped. "I don't play golf. He was just disturbing my work."

"Okay, okay," Doctor Weir sighed. "Let's talk about why I needed you to come here. We got a message from Colonel Caldwell. The Daedalus encountered a huge spaceship floating in the space not too far from Atlantis..."

"Wait. That's impossible. Our detectors would have signaled us," McKay interjected.

"No, they don't show any sign of that ship. I'd like you to join Zelenka and try to find out why. We are waiting for a more detailed report from the Daedalus about that ship. Hermiod made a guess it was a kind of Wraith construction, but it's extraordinarily complex."

"This always has to happen when we get a free afternoon," Sheppard noted with a moan.

"What do you mean?" Doctor Weir asked raising her eyebrows.

"Something strange and definitely not nice occurs every time I get a day off."


	2. Chapter 1: Danger

**Chapter 1 - Danger**

"We are getting an incoming message." A sergeant reported to Doctor Weir, who was standing in the main Control Room opposite the massive, grey ring of the Stargate. Her eyes wore a moony, tired look as she was staring at the huge circle. The sergeant needed a minute to remark, for she did not catch the meaning of his sentence, she was so deep in her thoughts. He began to explain it: "It's the report from the Daedalus about the strange ship they found."

The word "Daedalus" dragged her out of her melancholy.

"Call Rodney and Radek. They should run through the report to analyze it," she ordered briskly, and then hurried up the stairs. "We must find out something about that bizarre ship."

A few moments passed until the scientists arrived at the hall. They were arguing about some details of a plan to rerun the program of the detectors.

"No, Radek, you don't get the point," McKay retorted. "You are too slow to catch up with me..."

"Wait, wait, wait. What did you just say to me? Slow?"

"We have no time for childish debates," Weir silenced them, and pointed in the direction of the interface showing the technical report got from the Daedalus.

"He called me slow," Zelenka lamented.

"Because you are," Rodney added scornfully.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Could you two, please, just run through the report? Colonel Caldwell is waiting for our feedback."

The two scientists leaned over the interface so curiously that they forgot their previous contest at once.

"Oh, no," McKay groaned as he read through the last paragraph of the report. "No, no, no..."

"Rodney?" Elizabeth Weir asked with raised eyebrows.

"We are in trouble." He seemed startled. He threw down the interface onto the shelf next to him, and then rushed to a control panel. "I have to check, if..."

"Rodney, what's the problem?" Weir demanded impatiently.

"The parameters of that ship..." He pressed quickly some keys on the board, and then looked at the monitor where he examined the appearing picture of the inner parts of a giant space-ship. "Oh, gosh! The Orion..."

Doctor Weir did not understand the words he uttered, but she frowned anxiously, for she recognized the look on his face which showed up every time when their lives were in great danger.

"Okay, okay." McKay turned to Elizabeth. "The Daedalus detected a Wraith hive, but not just a simple hive. It's different. It's a super-ship with Asgardian technology in it, mixed with construction parts from the Orion. I suppose they found the wreck of the blown-up Orion, and some parts of it were still usable. This ship is larger than any other hive, stronger, faster and almost undestructible. It's the perfect weapon against Atlantis, against the whole Pegasus galaxy. I... I can risk the surmise that it's able to reach the Earth as well in a few weeks."

Doctor Weir tried to say something, but the only response she could pronounce was a quiet "uhh". She needed a moment to think it through. As she found her voice again, she turned to the sergeant standing next to her. "Get me in touch with the Daedalus. I need to share with them the info Rodney told us."

She braced against the side of the main panel as she was waiting for Colonel Caldwell's voice to echo through the Control Room.

* * *

"I have told you a million times," Rodney explained feverishly to Sheppard, "this super-hive means big danger for..."

"Okay, I understand, and I'm sure the only solution for us is to eliminate it."

"Do you think I'd like to keep it for my personal hive-collection? First we must find a way to do it."

"Well, that does not exactly sound like a holiday-program," Sheppard's mouth squirmed. "I guess you already have a plan to stop it."

"No! Don't you understand what I'm speaking about?" Rodney snapped. "We have no chance to fight against that hive. I have no idea how to cause the slightest damage to it."

"You always solve the impossible problems."

"If you think that flattery will solve _this situation_..." McKay's angry retort came to a halt, because the automatic door of the conference room opened, and Doctor Weir stepped in followed by Colonel Caldwell. John could clearly see from the expressions on their faces that it was not only McKay and him who were arguing about their current problems. Both Weir and Caldwell seemed irritated, but they did not go on about their previous topic, they just sat down next to the conference table.

"Where are Teyla and Ronon?" Elizabeth asked as an attempt to ignore her desire to punch Caldwell.

"No idea," John shrugged. "They should be here, I guess."

Doctor Weir switched on her radio-headset with a sigh. "Teyla, Ronon?"

Ronon's answer came instantly. "I'm nearly there. I was at the other part of the city when you called me."

"Is Teyla with you?"

"No. I haven't seen her since breakfast."

Weir broke the line. "John, could you, please, go, and fetch Teyla? She's given no response."

Sheppard got up from the table. "I'll be right back," he promised lightly, and left, feeling sorry for Rodney who stayed there, alone, with the two edgy, tired, not particularly amusing leaders.

* * *

He passed through the corridors whistling a Johnny Cash-song, and in his thoughts he went through every reasonable place where he should seek for Teyla. He decided to try her private room first because it seemed the most probable case that Teyla was meditating so deep that she did not even hear Weir's calls. It had never happened before, so he found it weird, but it was still the most imaginable reason he could think of.

As he got to Teyla's place, he stopped by the door, and knocked firmly.

"Teyla? Are you in?"

He got no answer. He waited there for a minute or two, and then he turned, going on with his search. He visited the gym hall, the canteen, the Control Room, and checked the greatest balcony-complex, the favorite of Teyla if she wanted to stay alone with her thoughts. He could not find her. He questioned everyone he met, but no one had seen her since breakfast-time. His radio-set buzzed, and Weir's impatient voice became audible.

"John, what's taking so long?" she asked apprehensively. "We have important matters to discuss here."

"I can't find Teyla," he admitted. "I went through her favorite places, I asked everyone, but no one saw her. I suppose she traveled to the shore to visit her people."

"I don't think so," Elizabeth opposed to Sheppard's idea. "She always informs me if she plans to go there, and she did not mention it this time."

"Okay, but where else can she be?"

"I'll try to call her by the speakerphone system of the Control Room. Now come up here, we need to start the talks. Weir out." She broke the line.

John sighed, and turned in the direction of the conference room.

* * *

That afternoon turned out to be one of the most boring, useless and time-wasting afternoons. McKay and Zelenka tried to come up with plans how to harm the super-hive, but as soon as one of them began to explain a theory, the other one objected at once, and pointed out why the idea was a foolish one. Weir and Caldwell pattered with their fingers on the surface of the table; it was obvious that they wished the two debating scientists into the cornfield, but it was clear that if anyone was able to solve the problem, it would be Rodney McKay and Radek Zelenka. Sheppard interjected once or twice with the idea of blowing up a sun in the neighborhood of the super-hive, or setting a herd of other Wraith hives upon the super one, but the scientists silenced him with disdainful waves of the hand. Ronon leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Doctor Weir left the room every half an hour, and called Teyla on the speakerphone, but she gave no sign.

"Okay, I'm ending the talks for today," Elizabeth decided at six o'clock in the evening. "I'll send a jumper out to keep an eye on the super-hive. If it gets closer to Atlantis, we will start the hiding system. Rodney, Radek, it would be really nice if you found a way for our detectors to signal that ship. That's your job for tomorrow. If you have any idea about destroying the super-hive as well, please, inform me. Ronon, I'd like to ask you to travel to the shore after dinner and search for Teyla. I'm going to her room now; maybe she left some message for us there."

She got up from the table, and stretched her back. Sheppard joined her on her way down the stairs. She could see from the corner of her eye the strange, cold glance that was shot at the two of them by Caldwell.

"It's so queer," Sheppard was talking about Teyla's disappearance. "It's unlike her. I'm getting worried."

"Well, I'm already worried," Doctor Weir moaned. "I don't think that she traveled to the shore."

"Do you suppose that some kind of accident happened?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

As they reached Teyla's room, John knocked on the door, and called for her again, but he got no answer.

"Okay, I'm going in." Elizabeth stepped forward, touching the electric panel on the wall. The door opened, and she went into the room. Sheppard - who was standing outside - could only see her coming to a sudden halt and her body stiffening.

"What the hell...?" He followed her in, and caught sight of the inner parts of the room.

"Oh, my God," Doctor Weir whispered staring at the floor.

There was a huge chaos of broken candles, torn canvas, and ruby blood stains all over the ground. The carpet was crumpled in a pile, the blankets were thrown away from the bed and the walls were covered with blood-drops. A torn-out mop of copper-blonde hair was lying in the middle of a blood-pool.


	3. Chapter 2: In the Dark

**Chapter ****2 – In the Dark**

Black, thick darkness surrounded her. Teyla felt unable to open her eyes for they were covered with sticky deposit of blood. She was lying on the floor, she could detect the amorphous, rough surface beneath her aching body. Her temple throbbed from the pain.

She moaned out loud. She lifted one of her hands; it was not as painful as she expected it to be. She tried to wipe off the blood from her eyes. The motion came to a halt, when she suddenly felt cold, slippery fingers wrapping around her wrist.

"Don't move," a hoarse, inhuman voice told her. "You are seriously injured."

"I know it," she mumbled, trying to pull her arm from the grip of those dead-like, slimy hands.

"Lie still!" The voice ordered her. "I'll bring you water, medicine and a blanket."

The hands let her free, and she could hear the heavy steps of the monster leaving. It was a Wraith. She knew it. She felt it with all the capacity of sensing of her mind. She did not care about the instruction she got, she wiped off the blood from her eyes, opened them, and looked around. She felt a cold shiver running through her muscles. The place around her was a cell. A disgusting, pulsating, organic cell of a Wraith hive.

She tried to sit up, but as she wanted to lean against the wall and lift her upper body, her head began to ache so sharply that she collapsed back onto the floor.

"It's just a nightmare," she whispered with her eyes closed. "I was in my room meditating. Now I must be still in there. It's just a nightmare..."

She had such a headache of hell that her eyes filled with tears. She was a warrioress, a tough woman, but her body seemed to give in for the pain. Crimson, blood-polluted teardrops were running down on her face.

"No, no! You must keep holding on," she told herself in her thoughts. "You are in a Wraith cell, you are incarcerated. You must find a way to get out."

She struggled hard to adjust herself into a sitting position to examine where her body was injured. She wanted to start with her ankles to check if she could move them or not, but as she lifted her head up, the pain became so intolerable that she fell back onto the ground gasping. She touched her head with one of her trembling hands, and she felt her hair soaking in blood. There must have been a serious wound there.

"Okay, okay, I rest a bit," she encouraged herself. "I take my strength now, later I'll find a way to break out."

She lay on the floor for a while. In the end there was no more burning pain, just darkness, maybe she lost consciousness for a few minutes, maybe she did not. The slow, heavy steps dragged her out of the numb emptiness. She opened her eyes, and caught sight of the returning Wraith. He stood there at the entrance with a blanket and a tin box in his hands.

"Michael," Teyla moaned his name, recognizing him.

"Yes, it's me." The half-Wraith half-human-like creature answered coldly. "Did you expect me to be dead?"

"No," she sighed. "I would never hope that, but that's true I thought you exploded on that planet..."

"You wanted me to die!" His voice became sharp and angry.

"I've never wanted your death."

Michael gave no response, but it was obvious that he did not believe her. He threw the blanket onto her, and then he put the tin box next to her on the floor.

"Where am I, Michael?" Teyla whispered in a tormented, weak voice.

"Aboard a Wraith hive."

"Why?"

"You ask too many questions. You need to take your medicines now." Michael kneeled down beside her, opening the tin box, and took out a white, round pill.

"No," she protested. "I don't want your medicines, I won't take them. Why am I here? Answer me!"

"You should have a rest now," he told her firmly. "You'll need these pills to recover..."

"No!" she grabbed his wrist. "Help me. Please, help me. I need to get out of here."

"You don't want to be here, do you?" he asked with a strange, mysterious expression on his face.

"Of course, I don't," she groaned. "Can you help me to get out?"

"I see that you don't understand at all," he told her slowly. "Let me explain it. You are here, because I brought you here. I want you to stay with me here."

"What do you mean?" she felt the pain in her head increasing. "Michael, please, help me! Please, get me out of here, please... please..."

He put his greenish monster-hand to her face. As his cold fingers touched her cheek, it made her choke from the abomination and from the head-ache as well. "Please," she heaved.

"I'll help you and I'll heal you," he promised quietly, "but you'll never leave this place."

She could not understand him properly because the pain became so sharp, she just gasped and fought to remain conscious. The only thing she could catch from his sentence was his intent to keep her in this cell. She grabbed the tin box of medicines with her spasmodically trembling fingers, and hit it at Michael's face with all the strength she could muster. The keen corner of the metal box cleft his right cheek, and bluish grey blood began streaming from the wound. Colorful capsules fell from the opening box.

"Damn it," he cursed, snatching the can from her shaking hand. "Do you want me to kill you?"

He took a gun from his belt, and pointed it at her. Teyla was not afraid in the least. The pain was unbearable, she was captured by the Wraiths, she was far away from home, and she was alone with one of her enemies in a reddish, organic cell... Well, simple dying was not the worst perspective for her at all.

She was nearly disappointed, when he lowered his weapon, and began to collect the pills from the floor.

"Can you, please, give me some water?" she asked him. "I'm thirsty."

"If you promise me to take your medicines, I'll give you some."

"No. I don't need pills." Her eyes scanned the place for another object to punch Michael with.

He found out her intent.

"You are injured and weak. You can't do me any harm," he told her plainly. "It's better if you do what I want."

"I won't take your poison. Take those medicines away!" she panted.

Michael finished arranging the capsules back in the box. He put it into the pocket of his black robe.

"Alright," he growled. "Tomorrow you'll beg me for these pills."

Teyla closed her eyes for she did not want to see him. She felt tired, thirsty and hopeless.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Her voice filled with sorrow. "Why? I've never meant to hurt you. I'm sorry for every bad thing that happened to you. I've never wanted you to suffer..."

"Oh, so you are sorry now!" Michael burst out in an evil, cold, insane laughter. "You are sorry now! It's nice to hear that. Shall I say as well that I'm so sorry for beating you half-dead with a baseball bat and for kidnapping you? Oh, Teyla, I'm so sorry, I've never meant to do you any harm, it just happened, you know. Things like this just happen sometimes... but it doesn't mean that we are not friends anymore, does it?"

He got up from her side, and left the cell. His inhuman, scary laughter echoed in the passage as he walked away. Teyla realized with a deep sigh that her situation here was even worse than she thought before.


	4. Chapter 3: Investigation

**Chapter 3**** - Investigation**

"What the hell has happened to her?" John asked anxiously, examining the blood-stains on the floor. "She must have gotten seriously injured."

Weir looked in the bathroom of Teyla's place. "There's no blood in there," she told him. "And there is not a single blood-drop out on the floor of the corridor."

"Okay, what does that mean?" Sheppard asked frowning. "The only guess I can make is that she should be still in this room heavily injured, but as far as I see she is not here."

"I don't understand either." Elizabeth sighed wearily. "Maybe it's not her blood all over the place."

"If not hers, where is the wounded person who made the mess? And that mop of hair on the floor is surely hers." John gestured in the direction of a blood-pool.

"I think we should call Ronon here," Doctor Weir said. "He is good at traces. I hope he can tell us what this all means."

Afterwards, she keyed the channel of the infirmary on her headset and asked Doctor Beckett if he knew something about Teyla's (or someone else's) injury with that much loss of blood, but he did not hear about it either.

* * *

Ronon examined the room thoroughly. Weir and Sheppard stood in the doorway nervously as they were waiting for him to share his conclusions.

"She was charged at by someone. From the direction of the blood-spots, she was beaten with a heavy object. The attacker grabbed her hair, that's how her hair got torn and a bunch of it fell onto the floor," Ronon murmured in front of him, as he was walking up and down in the room. "The thing I can't understand is how Teyla disappeared from this place. Every sign shows that she never left it after the struggle. There is no trace of dragging, and I'm sure that she could not get out of this room on her own with such injuries. Maybe, the attacker wrapped her in something preventing her blood from spattering on the floor in the corridor, and he or she carried Teyla away..."

"That's impossible," Sheppard shook his head. "Someone would have noticed if someone was dragging a covered body down the halls. This part of the base is never empty."

"Asgardian beam-technology," Doctor Weir whispered suddenly. "That's a way she could be transported out without being seen."

"Okay, then some marks of the operation can still be recognized on the computers aboard the Daedalus," John stated. "The only appliance that is able to use this technology is built in that ship."

"Oh, wait, wait," Weir protested. "I did not mean that. This Asgardian beam-technology-thing was just a quick idea..."

"And it's a really good one," Ronon nodded at her. "We should have a look at that ship."

Elizabeth put her arms around her chest as if she were cold, and stared, broodingly.

"We must arrange the case carefully," she said slowly. "It would not be good if someone found out that we had suspicions about the crew of the ship. I suggest we go right now and look around there. At this time there are only a few scientists, and maybe Hermiod aboard. They won't bother to ask what we are doing there."

"Okay, let's try it." John agreed. "Hopefully, we'll get a hint of Teyla's whereabouts."

They locked Teyla's room, and went to the transporter to teleport themselves to the stairs next to the resting ship. As they stepped out, unfortunately, they ran into Colonel Caldwell who was coming right from his spaceship. He raised his eyebrows as he caught sight of the three of them.

"What are you doing here?" he asked surprised.

"Let me explain it," Doctor Weir stepped forward, and secretly signed for Ronon and John to go on with their way to the Daedalus while she was distracting the attention of Caldwell from the entrance of his ship.

"Alright. Explain it." He wanted to turn after Sheppard and Ronon to watch what they were doing, but Elizabeth grabbed his uniform jacket, and forced him to stay with his back to the entrance.

"Can you, please, listen to me?" she asked in a stiltedly inquisitive tone of voice. "This situation is really important. Teyla has been injured, she has disappeared from her room, and we are looking for her..."

Her voice failed because she realized that she was holding him too tight, she was pulling him by his jacket so forcefully in her own direction that his nose nearly touched hers.

"Oops, sorry," she said quickly, and let him free. She stood in front of him blushing nervously, putting her weight from one leg to the other.

"And, what are you doing here on my ship?" he asked coldly, adjusting his uniform.

"We are just... erm... on our way to the labs" she replied timidly.

Caldwell turned around. "Where are Sheppard and Ronon?" he wanted to know, frowning.

"They went away to search for Teyla at... at the main lab..." she lied.

"It's late in the evening. Why are you three still occupied with the disappearance of that barbarian woman?"

"Don't you dare speak about her like that again!" she protested. "Teyla is an important part of the team, and she is not a barbarian, she is intelligent, emphatic and a good person."

Caldwell shrugged. "I still don't see a reason for running up and down the corridors looking for her. You should order everyone to their respective rooms, and then you can check her life-signal with the detectors."

"It's true, however..." She was searching for a good improvisation, but in this awkward moment Ronon stepped out of the entrance of the spaceship with a blanket in his hands.

"Look at this," he roared, and showed the blanket to her. It was blood-stained. "It's Teyla's blood and hair on it!"

Caldwell and Weir both stared at the blanket. The brown plush texture was covered with dark, reddish spots. John appeared behind Ronon.

"We found it stuffed into a built in cupboard," he explained.

"What the hell were you doing in the Daedalus?" Caldwell asked irritated.

"We were searching for clues of Teyla's disappearance." Sheppard answered casually, but as he saw Elizabeth Weir ducking her head with reddening face, he knew at that instant that he should not have told the truth.

Caldwell's glimpse at Elizabeth was sharp like a blade. "You wanted to mislead me," he stated coolly.

"Erm, I didn't mean it..." she muttered.

"You don't trust me, do you?" he asked bitterly.

"Oh, it's not about that." Her answer was quick. Too quick.

"Do you think that I have something to do with hurting that woman?"

Weir gulped. It seemed to her unavoidable to talk about a suspicion that crossed her mind.

"Well, I... I was just wondering... you know, that Goa'uld that controlled you for a short time... it could have left some parts of it in your personality..." She could not go on, because Caldwell stared at her with so much astonishment and pain in his eyes that her voice died away.

As she realized how offensive and hurtful her hasty reply was, she felt unable to carry on her previous line of thought; she was considering feverishly the proper way to apologize, but she could not find it. They were looking straight into each other's eyes speechless. When Caldwell finally got to his words again, his voice was dry and stand-offish.

"Alright, it's your job to investigate the case," he told her. "Do what you have to do." He turned away from her, and he left.

"Are you sure it was a good idea to mention the Goa'uld?" John asked Elizabeth silently.

Weir could kill him with her eyes, her glance was so resentful.

"No. It was definitely the rudest and most idiotic thing I've ever said!" she snapped. "I believed that he found out about my suspicion, I thought that was why he kept asking those questions. I... I just wanted to come up with the explanation quickly... Well, I was wrong." She clenched her fists forcefully.

"And, what now?" Ronon asked. "We know that someone brought Teyla aboard the Daedalus in this blanket. Shall I _interrogate_ the whole crew of the ship?"

"No, no, no," Elizabeth shook her head. "We'll need more sophisticated methods. Maybe, if I had not spoiled everything, we could ask for Colonel Caldwell's help for questioning his team, but now, we have a more complicated task."


	5. Chapter 4: Captured

**Chapter 4 -**** Captured**

Teyla tried to sit up. This time she succeeded, though she suffered from the pain. Michael, sitting in the other corner of the cell, staring merely in front of him, did not stir. He had come back an hour ago, but had not said a thing to her, he just sat down there, remaining silent.

"Are you angry with me?" Teyla asked.

"Yes. You did not take your medicines." He turned slowly in her direction. The expression on his face was somber.

"I don't know what kind of effect those medicines can have," she explained. "I just don't want to get poisoned."

"I would not poison you."

"Yes, you would! You beat me with a baseball bat, and you want me to believe that you don't want to hurt me?"

Michael frowned. "Yes, I hurt you once, but that won't happen again," he answered firmly.

"Okay, then let's forget about it, shall we?" Teyla's voice filled with sarcasm, "It's not a big thing anyway."

"You wanted to kill me with your friends," he retorted, getting angry in a flash, "You blew up the planet I was on!"

Teyla sighed, "Why don't you kill me? Come and finish this agony! If revenge is your aim..."

"No," he interrupted, "I don't want your death."

"What do you want from me, then? You want me to suffer? Then enjoy it!" She turned away from him. Her eyes wandered to the rails dividing her cell from the corridor, which was woven all over by organic, moist offshoots. The shade of reddish blood-color turned into pale lilac and brown at some places on the walls.

"I want you to stay here with me. It's the only thing I want from you," he replied quietly.

Teyla's eyes filled with pity. "Michael, I..." she stopped. She was not sure what to say to ease the situation.

They both kept quiet, and they just sat there in silence.

"Michael, I'm glad that I have the chance to see you again," she said finally. "When that planet exploded, I thought that you'd died. I felt so miserable. I've always liked you, and..."

"I don't believe you!" he hissed at her. "Your friendship to me was just a role-play for me to feel comfortable at your base. You've never liked me. You'd never like a Wraith!"

Teyla sighed, and she gave no reply. She saw that sweet talk would not help her that quickly. She needed time to persuade Michael about her good intent towards him. It seemed to her the best way to get out of here if she was able to make him believe that he could trust her.

"Is there a bathroom here or something like that?" she asked a few minutes later.

"I'll show you," Michael got up from the corner, turning to the left wall of the cell. He pulled away an excrescence of the meat-colored branches running up and down on the wall, and pushed a dark button on a thin panel. A hidden door became visible as its two edges departed, opening the way to a hollow, which was dimmed by the plenty of organic, membranous stripes hanging from the ceiling. A few flexible, red, cauldron-like things stood in the small room, pulsating, bubbling with some kind of greenish liquid inside.

It was so disgusting that it made Teyla feel creepy.

"That's your bathroom," he explained. "Do you like it?"

"It's... it's okay," she lied timidly.

Michael threw a cold, exquisite glimpse at her. "You can tell me the truth. You hate Wraith design!"

"Well, it's really... weird, but I do like it. It's something I've never had a chance to see in my whole life. I find it kind of interesting and kind of thrilling." She was not sure if he believed her or not, but he showed no sign of anger anymore, he just went to her, offering his hand to her.

She took it, and tried to get onto her feet, but her head seemed so heavy, so dizzying that she could not stand on her own, she fell into the arms of the Wraith. Michael clasped her in his arms, not letting her sink onto the floor.

"I... I'm sorry..." she gasped. "It's so much pain..."

"No problem," he answered coolly. He lifted her up, and he carried her into the _bathroom_.

"I... I'd like to take a bath," Teyla whispered, "for my hair is sticky with blood."

"Will you manage to do it alone, or do you want me to help you?" he asked while he was taking her to the biggest cauldron which seemed to share the functions of a bathtub.

„No, I don't need your help," she protested feverishly. „Don't stay here, please."

Michael aided her to sit onto the edge of the tub. "Take care that you don't turn giddy and don't fall..."

"It's okay, you can leave now," Teyla said to him quickly.

"I'll be right here outside, call me if you need help," he told her, leaving.

Teyla sighed, and she began to undress, but her headache turned so acute as she was pulling her vest over her head that she felt unable to go on. She seized the brim of the tub gasping, struggling desperately to keep her balance and not to fall onto the ground.

"Michael," she winced. "Michael, can you, please, come back?"

The Wraith stepped in without saying a word. He went to support her, while she was removing her clothes. Teyla tried to imagine that she was alone, there was no monster standing beside her, but she could not. She did not even notice her pain; her only thought was to get into the tub as soon as possible. When she finally got rid of the last part of her outfit, Michael helped her to sit into the tub. The greenish liquid was warm and smooth around her, she could have enjoyed it in a different situation.

"Do you feel awkward?" Michael asked silently.

"What's your guess?" Teyla sighed. "You've almost killed me, and now you are expecting me to feel alright naked with you in this horrid, disgusting bathroom?"

"So you lied to me again! You don't like this bathroom at all!" His voice filled with anger.

Teyla realized how foolish her reply was.

"Actually, this bathroom is okay," she answered quickly. "I just wanted to say something annoying to you, that's why I told you that it was horrible."

"You are trying to deceive me." Michael's voice became contorted by his fury. "You hate everything about this place, and you hate everything about me!" His gestures became abrupt; his features grew more Wraith-like and appalling.

"No." Teyla took his hand. "We were friends, Michael, and not as a part of your integration into the community of Atlantis. I saw something in your eyes when I first met you, which made me well disposed to you. I truly liked you. Well, it may happen that we are not friends anymore, but I will never hate you!"

The misshapen, evil expression seemed to pass away from his face.

"Does that mean that you see any chance for us to be friends again?" he asked silently.

She sighed. "No, Michael, it's too late for that."

"I intend to heal you; I'm taking care of you. I know your human habits, I know that it's something you should be thankful for..."

"It's not enough for a human friendship."

"I try to be nice to you..."

"You should try it harder or practice it because you still behave like a monster! If you want to be like a human, you should take me back to my friends, you should release me, you should..."

"Enough!" Michael shouted at her. He grabbed her hair which made her groan from the pain. "You'll never leave this place, you filthy humanoid bitch!" The sudden anger burned in his eyes with mad flames.

"Is this the nice part of your personality?" she asked quietly.

He pushed her to the side of the tub violently, and then he left, growling Wraith phrases. Teyla, choking from the pain, held on to the brim for a while. When she gathered enough strength, she began warily washing the blood out of her hair.


	6. Chapter 5: Clueless

**Chapter 5 ****– Clueless**

The broad, semi-transparent screen appeared from the nothing in the middle of the lab, when Rodney McKay switched on one of the Ancient computers. The diagram showed the fluctuation of the energy-supply of the sensors. In the background, Zelenka and a young scientist examined a map of the technical details of the equipment.

"It's impossible to find out the way to disturb our sensors if they got no inner help from Atlantis," Zelenka hemmed in front of him.

"What do you mean?" Rodney asked, shocked. "You mean that someone sent our sensor-protocols to the Wraiths?"

"After the ominous alliance when we let a few Wraiths in our city, Weir ordered me to change some parameters in our sensor-system in case the Wraiths should figure out a method to circumvent our sensors," Zelenka explained. "So even if they got information from the database of the blown-up Orion, that information is outworn, there is no chance that the crew of the super-hive could find out the way to disturb our sensors."

McKay snapped his fingers. "You should have told me earlier that you tampered with the sensor-system!" He shook his head. "I'm sure that you overlooked something, impairing a part of the equipment-"

"No!" Zelenka protested feverishly. "I made the necessary changes, nothing more. I checked it three times. I wrote down every change into my personal palmtop – you should have a look at my notes before you accuse me of doing any harm to our systems."

"Okay, show me the notes," Rodney beckoned, "Anyway, I'm sure that you did something detrimental to our sensor-system, and that's why the sensors don't work in the case of the super-hive."

Zelenka made an affronted gesture and pushed his palmtop in the direction of McKay. "You can check it, but you won't find a mistake," he murmured.

"Hey, guys!" John Sheppard stood in the doorway, smiling. He was wearing civilian clothes instead of the military uniform, a black t-shirt, which emphasized his muscles, and blue jeans. "How are you getting along with your job?"

"Very well," Rodney answered instantly. "We found out that Zelenka had muddled up our sensor-system."

"No, for Heaven's sake, no!" Radek turned to Sheppard, shaking his head. "I changed some details of the protocols in our sensor-system, but they were all harmless. I did nothing wrong."

"Well, we will see," McKay turned to Zelenka's palmtop.

"How can you tolerate him in your team?" Radek asked Sheppard, making a slight motion towards Rodney. The question made John's smile turn into a grin.

"We had to practice it really hard..." He answered sarcastically.

"I've heard that," McKay put Zelenka's palmtop aside, and turned to the others. "If you wish to talk about me, you should do it outside."

"No. I'm curious what you can find out about our sensors, I'm waiting for some results," John took a chair, and he sat down.

* * *

Hermiod stood at the other side of the desk with a grey, aggrieved furrow on his forehead, reminding Doctor Weir of an angry gremlin from an old book with fairy-tales.

„I've already told you that I have no idea how it could happen that the files had been deleted from the database of the Daedalus." The little Asgard repeated quickly. "I've done nothing with that appliance since Wednesday."

"Okay, slow down. No one assumes that it is your responsibility." Doctor Weir tried to force a smile into the corner of her mouth, but she was exhausted, worried and she had enough of the irritated answers given by the crew of the Daedalus as she kept questioning them, so she did not manage to shape the smile convincing enough. "I am not looking for the party at fault; I just want to know how Teyla Emmagan could disappear, and I want to find her. Could you, please, try to help me instead of insisting on your innocence?"

"I don't know a thing about the case," Hermiod replied coolly. "As far as I know, it's only Doctor Lindsey Novak and me who are familiar enough with the protocols of that database to completely delete the whole list of transactions."

"Novak could not tamper with the database, for she spent the last two days in the infirmary because of the attack of the dog-like creature she bought from the Athosians," Doctor Weir sighed. "And I don't think that you would have done it either. McKay and Zelenka are smart enough to handle that database, but it can't be them either. Who else has the ability to puzzle out the functional parameters of your beam-technique-system?"

"Someone who is familiar with Asgardian scripts," Hermiod murmured, looking daggers at Weir. Colonel Caldwell, who was standing at the back of the room, leaning leisurely against a metal-pillar, smiled maliciously as he heard the Asgard's answer. At first, Doctor Weir did not catch the hidden meaning of the Asgard's cold look and Caldwell's smirk, but then she realized what that was.

"Well, I've studied Asgardian language for a while, if that's what you mean," she answered, narrowing her eyes. "Of course, we can cross my name off the list because I know perfectly well that I did not do a thing to the systems of your ship. Who else do you have in mind?"

"No idea," Hermiod replied apathetically. "No one has ever asked me to show him or her how the files can be deleted from the database. I haven't seen anyone trifling with the appliance either. That's all."

Doctor Weir began to lose patience. "Okay, so you are telling me that someone kidnapped a woman, brought her in a blood-dripping blanket with the beam-technology aboard the Daedalus, transported her somewhere else, then deleted the files about the transactions, and no one on that damned ship saw or heard a thing?"

Caldwell stepped forward. "We don't spend our whole life aboard the resting Daedalus. It may happen that none of us was aboard when that person broke into our systems."

"Oh, don't you think that this idea has already occurred to me as well?" Elizabeth asked indignantly. "I've checked it, and there were people aboard the ship yesterday during the whole time-period while Teyla might have disappeared. A few scientists kept repairing a malfunction of the engineering system..."

"Why don't you ask them, then?" Hermiod interjected.

"I've asked them, but they told that they had noticed nothing related to the case." Doctor Weir leaned back in her chair. She knew beforehand that her next order would make Caldwell annoyed, but she had no other choice. She turned to the colonel. "I want you to command all of your people to visit the infirmary during the day. Doctor Beckett will check if they have any influence by aliens which might be manifested in biological mutations. I myself will get me examined, and I will send everybody from the residents of Atlantis who has no perfect alibi for that morning to go to the infirmary for a quick check-up as well. I'd like you two to do the same, too."

Again, she could see how stupid of her was when she had mentioned Caldwell the Goa'uld case yesterday. If she had not done that, now it would have been much easier to tell this instruction without any awkward innuendo in it, and that sour expression on Caldwell's face would not have appeared either.

* * *

McKay looked up from Zelenka's palmtop. "Radek, why did you edit this file a week ago?"

"What?" Zelenka, who was examining the screen of the energy-fluctuations thoroughly, turned to Rodney surprised. "I wrote those notes two months ago, and I did not even open the file afterwards."

"Look, here!" Rodney showed him the screen of the palmtop. "It points out that it was edited last Friday."

"That's impossible! I did not do a thing to that file."

"Who knows the security password of your palmtop?" John asked from the background, frowning. He stopped playing with one of the hanging cables of a computer, and turned his chair in the direction of the two scientists.

"Do you assume that someone could break in the system of my palmtop?" Zelenka asked dumbfounded. "No, no, that's impossible. No one knows my security passwords except me. No one could... Oh, no!" He suddenly came to a halt, and his face grew very pale.

"What no?" Sheppard asked impatiently.

"I've just remembered that last week one of my jotters disappeared from the lab. It contains all my passwords written on the front page, so I was really upset to lose it, but next morning I found it again under a pile of books. I was sure that I could not leave it there, though I suspected nothing wrong. Anyhow, I wanted to change my passwords just to make sure that no ignorant person would muck about with my palmtop, but unfortunately I forgot about it."

"Why the hell do you keep your passwords written into a jotter?" McKay stared at him, shaking his head with disapproval.

"In case something bad may happen to me, I wanted you to have an easy way to get access to my work on my palmtop." The other scientist explained.

"Well, it seems that someone else gained unearned access to your notes," Sheppard sighed, and he got up from his chair. "Someone read your passwords, opened the file in which you collected the changes of the sensor-system you made, and he or she could transfer them to the Wraiths. Now I'm going to talk to Elizabeth about the situation. She won't be glad to hear it; she is already worried about the strange changes made in the database of the Daedalus. I'm sure that the news of having a traitor in Atlantis won't make her day happier."

"Oh, my God, she will fire me," Zelenka muttered bitterly.


	7. Chapter 6: On a Mission

**Chapter 6 – On a Mission**

The wind was blowing around small dust circles in the barren, treeless lowlands. The soil was rough, dry; no sign of plants could be seen. Only where the mountains loomed at the horizon, a green patch of a forest appeared.

"Are you sure it is a suitable planet for reasonable creatures?" John Sheppard asked McKay, half-joking, referring to the ice-cold air and the hopeless, grey desert.

"The MALP signed that every parameter fits for human living." The scientist answered with a shrug. "As for me, I'd rather choose Acapulco."

"If we eliminate the super-hive, I will ask Elizabeth to give us a week off and get us free rooms in a five-star hotel in Hawaii," John said, kidding.

"Hawaii and Acapulco? What are these two things?" Ronon inquired.

"You should visit them with us. Some beautiful places on the Earth with palm trees, beaches and sexy, suntanned girls in bikinis," Sheppard winked. "After we exploded that ship..."

"I have no idea why you believe that it is possible to find anything against the super-hive," McKay snapped, becoming oddly edgy. "Even if we knew the proper technology of that ship, it would not help us much. It can be destroyed only from the inside, and unfortunately we have no traitor in the heart of the Wraith community to help us."

John made a wry smile. "Any other negative thoughts?"

"Yes, there are a lot," Rodney snorted. "For example, if they are able to find out from the database of the Orion the coordinates of the Earth, or if they are able to break through the hiding system of Atlantis..."

"Okay, I did not say that I wanted to hear it," John sighed. "Let's talk about the weather."

They were three, Sheppard insisted on the fact that Teyla should come back as soon as possible, and it was unimportant to replace her for the next few missions. Doctor Weir wanted McKay to stay in Atlantis, for she thought he could be more useful there, but John convinced her that he needed McKay in his team, and it was often better if Zelenka and Rodney did not work together. They just hindered each other with their constant debating. While Radek was up to convert one of the subroutines of the detectors, McKay and the team should search for some alien technology which is able to destroy the super-hive. Weir was not completely assured, but she let Rodney join Sheppard and Ronon on their next mission.

"The weather is not much fun either," McKay lamented. "The wind desiccates my skin. Do you have any idea how much it hurts when your skin chaps?" He asked irritably when he saw on the face of the others that they they did not share his worries about his problem.

"I'm sure it is a real suffering," Ronon murmured with a sarcastic grimace.

"You should try it once," McKay retorted, and intended to explain the horrid nature of dry skin, but they reached a group of black rocks, and suddenly a beam crossed the emptiness of the grey dust, and hit the ground not far from Ronon's feet.

"What the hell..." McKay moaned, growing pale.

"Wraiths!" Ronon shouted, and grabbed his gun. He scanned the place for shelter, and he caught sight of a nearby rock. "Come!"

He ran behind the rock. John tugged the petrified Rodney with him. They reached the rock just in time, because the next shots hit their footprints stirring up the cool dust in dark whirls.

McKay closed his eyes tightly. "If the dust gets into my eyes, I will have horribly red eyes," he explained.

"They were waiting for us," Ronon snarled. He leaned out of the shelter, and shot with his weapon in the direction where the Wraiths' shots came from. Sheppard followed his example and fired.

"Could it be that the traitor in Atlantis informed the Wraiths about the planet we were visiting?" Sheppard asked from the others.

"Oh, no! Why would anyone send Wraith assassins after three guys?" McKay shook his head. "With the super-hive, they could destroy the whole city of Atlantis in no time if they were able to elude our hiding system. It's no use killing us this way."

"I'm sure it was planned in advance!" Ronon murmured. "It's no accident that a couple of Wraiths were hiding behind a group of rocks waiting for travelers to come from the direction of the Stargate. They are after us!"

"Are you sure they are Wraiths?" Rodney asked.

"Yes. These shots are coming from Wraith weapons."

"We should find an idea how many Wraiths there are here," Sheppard marked. "As long as we don't know it, we can't be sure if we are able to fight against them or we should retreat back to the Stargate."

"I suggest the second option, the one with the word _retreating_ in it," McKay groaned.

"Rodney, could you open your eyes, take your gun and help us?" John asked, becoming slightly irritated. "I understand this red eye thing, but if you keep on sitting here like that, the Wraiths will kill us, and then you can't use your healthy eyes anymore!"

"Oh, yes, sorry." McKay hastily grabbed his machine-gun, and joined the others in the shooting.

They hit two or three Wraith soldiers, and it seemed there was only a small group waiting for them, because the beams rarefied, only one Wraith remained on foot.

"I'll go nearer," Ronon said. "I'll catch this one alone."

"Wait," John stopped him. The lasers ceased to come, showing that the last Wraith ended the shooting.

"Why did this monster leave it off?" Ronon wondered. "We should go right now and check..."

"It's too dangerous," Sheppard shook his head. "We should approach her shelter slowly, carefully."

In the very next moment, they heard a sharp, familiar humming.

"A Wraith Dart!" McKay screamed, realizing that the last Wraith got into a Dart instead of engaging in useless shooting in the desert. "Run as fast as you can!"

He wanted to jump out from behind the rock, but Ronon held him back.

"I'll get it down," he promised, and he took off from his muscular shoulders the greater laser-cannon he carried on his back.

"Be quick, otherwise the Wraith will collect all of us into the Dart, and we'll become his or her lunch," Rodney stammered.

Ronon aimed at the nearing Wraith Dart's shining metal point in the sky. He narrowed his eyes, and followed with the tip of the cannon the quickly moving spot. He concentrated deeply, and then he fired. The fireball left the tube, crossed the dust-swirls and glided directly in the direction of the Dart. The Wraith piloted the Dart out of the line of the shot in the last minute.

"Oh, no!" McKay moaned out.

Ronon aimed again. "Very quick and dexterous, this bastard," he murmured. He fired once more. Now the Dart already got so near that he could be more precise. The quick shot hit the vehicle, and it exploded with a great boom. Red fire-circle flashed across the sky, and then burning pieces rained down onto the dark rocks.

"Nice aiming, Ronon," John stepped out of their shelter. "Let's check the place if our way is completely clear or not."

They walked around the groups of rocks, searching for living Wraith soldiers, but there was no sign of any. Finally, they reached the place, where the exploded pieces of the Dart landed.

They approached the wreck watchfully. The flames were dancing on the crooked, broken metal pieces with shining sparkles and grey wisps of smoke. As they reached the nearest fragment, they caught sight of something moving among the debris. A greenish hand of a Wraith was hanging from under pile of metal, and its fingers kept bending spasmodically.

"Halt!" Sheppard signed for his team to stop. He passed round the slightly moving body carefully.

It was a seriously wounded female Wraith. Her chest was pinned by a broken part of the Dart's control panel, and her left side was badly burnt by the hot metal of the blown-up vehicle. The greenish, amorphous lines of her face squirmed. "Help me," she rattled off. "Don't leave me die here..."

Ronon took his weapon, and pointed it right at the Wraith. "We won't leave you," he smirked. "We'll kill you."

"Wait," Sheppard broke in on him, pushing his gun aside. He turned to the injured Wraith. "Have you ever seen a woman called Teyla Emmagan?"

"Teyla...?" The voice of the Wraith died, her head fell back onto the ground, and she lost her consciousness.

"Maybe she knows something about Teyla," Sheppard guessed.

"I'm sure she has not got the slightest idea," Ronon objected. "We should kill her right now."

"No. I have other plans. I think we should bring Carson to heal her," Sheppard answered.

"What?" snapped McKay and Ronon at the same time. "Healing a Wraith?"

"Look, she may be our only chance to make sure that Teyla was captured by the Wraiths or not, to get to know who the traitor is in our city, and to find a way to destroy the super-hive."

"I don't think it's a good idea," Ronon snarled. "I've never seen helpful Wraiths."

"We can give it a try," Rodney joined in Sheppard's plan. "She might tell us about the super-hive, if we manage to establish a nice relationship..."

"A nice relationship?" Ronon snorted. "Even if I torture the hell out of her she won't tell a word about Teyla or the super-hive! Do you think that a _nice relationship_ would persuade her?"

"Well, it's one of our tactics from the Earth," Sheppard said. "You'll see how beautifully it works."

Ronon shook his head with disapproval. "I know these monsters well enough. You won't get a true word from her."

"Have you ever seen a Wraith begging for her life? She must have held her safety incredibly important if she wanted to survive so much that she asked us to help her."

"Okay, it was truly strange, but that doesn't mean that she can be useful for us."

"Ronon, I want to find Teyla. We must use this chance." Sheppard declared firmly. "We have no idea how the Wraiths could get the key to the protocols of our sensors, we have no idea how Teyla could disappear from Atlantis. If there is a traitor who cooperates with the Wraiths, maybe this is our only opportunity to find it out quickly."

"That's the worst plan I've ever heard," Ronon murmured, adjusting a huge cutlass at the left-hand side of his belt. "What if she points someone out? Would you believe her that one of our friends is disloyal if a Wraith says it so? I wouldn't. What if she tells us a plan to stop the super-hive? Would you believe her? I wouldn't. What if she shows us a place where Teyla might be? Would you walk into her trap?"

"Okay, we must be really careful with believing what she says, but that's why Rodney used the phrase _nice relationship_. That doesn't mean that we want to fraternize with this monster, it means that we try to convince her that our interests are the same as hers."

"I want to find Teyla as much as you do," Ronon shook his head, "but I'm sure that a Wraith won't help us in any way. You'd better believe me, I know these beasts well enough."

"I still find it very strange that she begged us for her life," John noted. "I've never seen any sign of fear of dying in the case of a Wraith. Have you?"

"Me neither," Ronon admitted.

"She has some reason to cling to her life. If we were able to find out about it, maybe we could persuade her," Sheppard said hopefully.

Ronon winced. He held the plan to be nearly impossible, but he had an intense bad intuition about Teyla. He felt that she must have gone through terrible pain, and if she was still alive, they needed to find her quickly. He was more worried about her than he imagined he would be, and he was ready to hold on to every chance that could help them get nearer to her whereabouts.

"Alright," he sighed. "Let's try it, but I'd like to be here to listen to the things she says if she recovers consciousness. I'm more conversant with these monsters, so I can be helpful with seeing through her lies."

"Okay, let's dial Atlantis," John turned in the direction of the Stargate. "I'll ask for Elizabeth's permission to call Carson."

* * *

As Doctor Beckett arrived with his medical bag, they were still standing around the unconscious Wraith. Her body was motionless, only her black, long hair stirred as the wind was blowing it with the mixture of the dust and grime.

"Uh-oh," Carson hemmed in front of him, when he caught sight of the huge metal-piece piercing through the Wraith's bust.

"We extinguished the fire before it could burn all her body," John explained, "but her left side looks very... smutty."

"Yes, half of her body is burnt," the doctor noted. "Alright, let's look at the case more thoroughly."

He kneeled down beside the body of the Wraith. He checked her heartbeat, he examined the torn edges of the gross wound on her chest, and then he carefully turned her on her unhurt side and made the spot visible, where the sharp, six feet long part of the blown up Dart stabbed her chest from behind.

"We have a problem," Carson noted, getting up from the side of the wounded Wraith.

"What's that?" John inquired, frowning.

"She is very seriously injured. I'll need the whole equipment of my lab to save her life, but those machines won't function here. If we want to keep her alive, we have to bring her back to Atlantis immediately."


	8. Chapter 7: Dilemma

**Chapter 7**** – Dilemma**

Elizabeth Weir's office bathed in the morning light. The bluish metal color of the plain, glinting surface of her desk was broken by small groups of souvenirs standing around her palmtop. Little wooden statuettes, a special orchid McKay brought back from one of his missions, a tiny model of the Parisian Triumphal Arch and piles of documents were placed on the right and left sides of the desk, surrounding the woman, who was sitting with careworn melancholy in her eyes.

John Sheppard left her office a minute ago, and Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, intending to think through the whole situation of the injured Wraith, but she heard a firm knock at the door-case of her office and Colonel Caldwell stepped in. After the incident when she accused him of possibly having something Goa'uldish in his personality, her relationship with Caldwell was not more pleasant than falling into an icy lake in a chilly winter-night, so she was not particularly looking forward to having a talk with him.

Doctor Weir tried to fake a smile as an attempt to cover up her dejection, and she signed cordially for Caldwell to come in.

"I hear that Sheppard's team brought back an injured Wraith from their mission," the colonel started speaking.

"Yes, it's true. I decided to order Doctor Beckett to cure her," Elizabeth gave her response calmly. She knew beforehand what Caldwell's opinion would be on the topic, but she did not feel like beating about the bush, so she spoke out, deciding to finish up with this conversation as fast as she could.

"What have you just said?" Caldwell raised his eyebrows surprised. "The problem is big enough a Wraith got into the city and it may see Atlantis standing unharmed, and you want to spare its life?"

Weir got up from her desk. "I suppose _she_ has information about the super-hive. That would be useful to..."

"Oh, no, Doctor Weir, you can't really believe a Wraith would share true information with us!" His mouth curved into a sarcastic, bitter smile. "The only thing we can achieve by keeping that monster alive is that it will do harm to the city or kill someone or contact its folk or..."

"Enough, Colonel," Elizabeth cut in, and she stepped forward. Her face was serious. "If you don't like my decision, that's your personal problem. If you hate it so much, you can write a report to the Stargate Command, and ask for my replacement. That's all there is."

Caldwell looked her up and down with angry sparks in his eyes. He mused over something for a minute, and finally he said, "You want to save that Wraith because it was John Sheppard who brought it here."

"What do you mean?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. This turn of the discourse surprised her extremely.

"I've already seen many times how partial you are when things come to Sheppard."

She rolled her eyes. "So that's the point - you are still jealous of him getting the job you desired."

"You know this case has nothing to do with jealousy," Caldwell retorted indignantly. "It's about your narrow-mindedness. When Sheppard makes a decision, it doesn't matter if it's dangerous or harmful or anything like that, you must instantly stand by him."

She was certain that at least half of his coldness came from jealousy. She nearly felt the phrase leaving her lips: "you touchy, narcissistic careerist", but, being a professional diplomat, she could stop herself in time from uttering those words.

"Look, Colonel," she replied calmly instead. "We don't need to get too personal in this matter. It's neither about John Sheppard, nor about me. There is an injured Wraith, who asked for our help."

"Your teams kill hundreds of these bastards on the missions you send them out. Why should we care about one single Wraith if it lives or dies?"

"Well, it's not as simple as you make it seem," Weir replied coolly. "The U.S. Army is at war against terrorists, so if you were sent to hunt down some of them, of course you would kill them. But what if a woman from a fanatic group gets heavily injured and she comes to your home, and asks for your aid to protect her from dying alone in great torments? Wouldn't you help her?"

"This situation is different. It's not a human, it's a Wraith!"

"_She_ is a living creature with her senses and her consciousness. She asked for our help. Do you really think that we should let her die when we can easily save her? Doctor Beckett told me he had the proper tools to heal her, and he would gladly give it a try..."

"You and that Beckett would make a wonderful couple," Caldwell said mockingly. "You are both so naive."

"It's not naivety!" She crossed her arms, and threw a venomous glance at him. "I don't feel like arguing about that right now. As long as I'm in charge here, we won't let anyone die for anything, if we can help them."

"_It_'s not a person, _it_'s just a Wraith," Caldwell repeated his former statement with plain loathing on his face.

Doctor Weir decided to try to change the aspect of the problem they were discussing. "Two cadets are ordered to keep guard at her room, and they will stay there for the whole time of her recovery. She can't do any harm."

"You were already deceived by the machination of the Wraiths once. Do you want to make the same mistake again?"

Weir bit her lower lip. "You don't have to remind me."

"Okay, then please use your mind, and throw that damned Wraith out of the base to die!"

"You are speaking like a heartless monster."

"No, I'm speaking _about_ a heartless monster."

Elizabeth crossed her arms even tighter. "Don't you understand that this might be our only chance to get information about the super-hive?"

"If you think that following a Wraith's advice might be a reasonable way to solve our problems, you must be completely insane!"

They stared at each other with anger. They both felt that they could not persuade each other, the pointless contest just took their strength away. At the very moment Doctor Weir opened her mouth to start the meaningless argument again, they heard an amused giggle, and they caught sight of Doctor Beckett standing in the door.

"You two remind me of my early childhood: you look exactly like my father and my mother as they were fighting about money," he noted with a smile.

His gleeful banter surprised the two leaders. Caldwell and Weir both flushed red, and seemed to lose their previous cold self-confidence. The colonel cleared his throat, it was obvious that he wanted to come up with a huffy retort, but then he did not manage, he just stood there speechless. Elizabeth stared at the doctor with angry glints in her eyes too, though she was struggling for words as well. Finally, it was she who gave response.

"There's nothing funny about you having a horrible childhood, Carson," Doctor Weir mumbled feeling ill at ease. She adjusted her curly, maroon locks of hair nervously. Doctor Beckett wanted to answer something with a catchy, shrewd smile, but she went on quickly, preceding his reply, "We were... erm... talking about our _guest_. How is she?"

"I gave her a high dose of painkillers," the doctor said, "but I should start the operation immediately, if we want to save her. What is your decision?"

Elizabeth sighed. She felt unable to look at Caldwell.

"Bring it on," she replied. "Save her life, if you can."

Doctor Beckett smiled at her. "I guess we are doing the right thing," he encouraged her, leaving the place to organize the preparations for the Wraith's surgery. He turned back once from the doorway. "Anyway, I did not have a horrible childhood at all," he told Doctor Weir, whose cheeks turned into a shade of red at instant. "My parents were really sweet, just when it came to financial matters... Anyhow, they loved each other, even if..."

"Thank you, Carson, you can leave now," she snapped, turning away from him. The doctor shook his head still smiling, and then he departed to start the operation.

Elizabeth wished there was an Asgardian beam-flash that could teleport her out of the room right at the moment, she did not feel like facing Caldwell after her decision.

He gnashed his teeth. "You are a real fool to save that goddamn Wraith!"

She had enough of this conversation, and his brusque words made her even more tired of the situation.

"I don't want to hear about it again," she stopped him. "I made my decision, and I'm holding on to it. Goodbye, colonel." She gestured in the direction of the door with a stand-offish, determined look on her face.

"You should listen to me instead of John Sheppard - at least once in your life!" Caldwell snarled, clenching his fists furiously. He turned away, and marched out of Weir's office.

The automatic door slid into the walls with a silent burr, then it closed behind him, throwing golden sparkles of sunbeams into the air as the metal leaf mirrored the morning light. Elizabeth felt sure that if there had still been a slight glimpse of friendliness in their relationship with Caldwell, now it disappeared completely. She had to fight hard to suppress the urge that inspired her to run after him and to say something nice to him. Something like that she understood his point of view, that she appreciated his frankness, that she really saw how dilemmatic this case was, that his opinion could easily prove to be the right one, and so on.

"Oh, well, I could do it, if I were in private here, but I'm not. I'm a leader, I have to make immovable resolutions. I can't show any sign of weakness in front of the kind of person who wonts to question my decisions!" She tried to assure herself. "If I go after him now, he will see my doubts, and next time I won't be able to get rid of him with his constant niggling. Anyway, he called me a fool! I won't apologize to him after that."

She closed her eyes, and tried not to recall Caldwell's cold, derisive words, but she was unable to sweep them out of her mind, they were swirling in her head mercilessly.


	9. Chapter 8: Feelings

**Chapter 8**** – Feelings**

Michael opened the entrance of Teyla's cell and stepped in. He had a bread-like, pale thing in his hands. She was lying on the floor, trying to sleep a bit, but it was impossible because of her pain. She sat up as she saw him arriving. He had been gone for at least eight hours now if not longer; she began to think that he forgot about her.

"Where were you?" she asked silently.

"It's none of your business," he barked at her roughly, the fact that his mood was really bad seemed obvious.

"Did something wrong happen to you?"

"I brought you some food," he said instead of answering.

"Okay, thank you, but I'm not hungry at all."

"I'm not interested in it, you have to eat because I say so," he replied coldly, offering her the bread-like thing. It had an unhealthy, greenish pale color, reminding Teyla of mold.

"It's disgusting." The answer burst out of her, she could not stop herself in time. "Why don't you bring me normal food?"

"Eat it, or I'll hit you," he snarled.

Teyla sighed, and reached out for the bread. She ate it quickly, trying not to notice the cheese-like odor and the sourness in its taste. When she finished it, she felt even more miserable than she did before, her headache increased from the motions of her jaw as she chewed the bits of the bread.

"How did you like it? I myself baked it for you," Michael announced proudly.

"Erm, it was really er unique," she stammered, struggling not to show her abomination.

"What would you like to eat next time? I can cook you a special soup..."

"Oh, you don't need to bother, some fruit will perfectly do," she replied hastily.

"Don't be that humble. I'll cook you a nice soup."

Teyla closed her eyes, and she wondered if dying would be a more pleasant option than eating Michael's meals.

"The truth is," she moaned, "That Wraith food is not very good for me. I would be happier if you brought me some human food."

"It was no Wraith food," Michael's response sounded indignant. "Wraiths don't eat things like that, we gain our energy from humans. I found the recipe of this bread in a human cookery book."

"Oh, really?" Teyla saw that her objection was totally stupid. "Well, thank you." She gave up the hope to dissuade Michael from cooking her.

"Lately, I have often read human books," Michael went on. "I'd like to get familiar with human nature."

Teyla did not ask why, she closed her eyes again, for her headache turned so acute.

"When I was in Atlantis, I borrowed a very interesting novel from one of the cadets." Michael told her slowly. "It was about a nice, young couple and about their deep love. They go for walks in the park, they sit in restaurants eating oyster, and they breed a little white dog. They buy a new house for the two of them. One day, when the man comes home earlier, he catches sight of his girl and another man kissing each other. He hides behind a tree, and waits until the other man leaves. Later he walks into his house, and asks the girl to help him bring up some coal from the basement of their house. She goes down the stairs, and he locks the door behind her. He locks her in the basement of his house, right under his bedroom. He leaves her there forever. She screams and screams and screams for days, and he just paces in his room, listening to her screams. When he doesn't hear her anymore, he lies down on his bed, and smiles, and falls asleep. That's the end of the novel."

"What kind of stupid things do you read in your free time?" Teyla sighed. Her temple was burning from the pain as if her skull was stuffed with hot cinder. "That book was not about love."

"Yes, it was." The Wraith did not even turn in her direction; he stared at the organic, reddish wall of the cell.

"No. There is great difference between true love and sick obsession."

"I don't see any."

"Michael, you are a Wraith, you can't understand human feelings," Teyla told him, though she suspected that it was not true. She pressed her palms to her forehead to ease her pains.

"Yes, I can because I feel some of them!" He clenched his fists.

"What?" She regretted her question the moment she said it.

"Yes," Michael's answer came quickly; he still kept his eyes on the wall. "I love you."

"_Why did I have to ask it, why, why, why?" _Teyla thought glumly. She was angry with herself for inquiring about his feelings because now she had to improvise a proper response, but the unbearably splitting headache made it nearly impossible to form deliberate answers.

"You can't be sure that it's love," she said shyly. "You are not familiar with human feelings. Maybe, it's just... just..."

"It's the same feeling the man felt in the novel." He turned to her, and threw a scary, eager glance at her.

"Okay. Please, promise me one thing. Next time, if you want to learn about human emotions, don't read books about vengeful, jealous fools."

"Do you think that I have this feeling because I read the novel? No, no, you greatly misunderstood the whole thing. It's not the book that made me feel it. It's you."

Teyla closed her eyes wearily.

"That man in the book..." she went on broodingly. "I suppose, in the end he was not in love anymore. One thing I'm sure of: he could not have any positive feelings for that particular girl if he enjoyed her sufferings. That is the difference between true love and cruel, selfish obsession."

"Really?" Michael's voice sounded doubtful. "You are trying to deceive me again. These two things are the two different sides of the same feeling. You think that I will believe you everything you tell me about human love just because I'm originally a Wraith, but you won't succeed because I know how complex things feelings might be. That book was about love."

Teyla sighed, and leaned her head back to the wall, seeing that Michael caught her out in her lie. In fact, the old-fashioned tradition of killing women who cheated on their husbands was still alive at her tribe, though this form of revenge did not rate very popular anymore, it happened every now and then, but younger couples found it brutal and unnecessary.

"Love has many different faces," Michael went on. "I cannot love you the way a normal, ordinary man can do, but it doesn't mean that I don't love you at all."

She seemed to think it through, though in reality she was unable to think, she was just fighting with the increasing headache. Finally, she told him, "You did not lock me in so that I die of thirst and hunger. Why not, if that's what you call _love_?"

The Wraith gave no response, so Teyla went on, "Do you see? If that book had been about real love, you would feel no uneasiness about torturing and killing me."

"I don't think that you are right. You just want to convince me that if I loved you, I should release you. Isn't it your secret purpose?"

Teyla made a tired, painful grimace. "Michael, if you keep me here, in the end either I will kill you or you will kill me. There's no other way."

"Yes, there is! I hope one day you will grow to love me, and then everything will be wonderful."

This childish, naive statement made Teyla feel even sadder than she did before. "No, Michael, don't you understand? I don't love you, and I will never ever love you. I'm sorry."

The Wraith snorted. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I..." she stopped suddenly, realizing that telling him the truth would make the Wraith kill her. "Oh, well, I can't be sure," she said quickly instead, "but I don't think it is a good idea to try it."

"Why not? Just give it a chance," Michael's voice was buoyant in a way she had never heard him speak before. He was always cagey, gloomy or even somber, but now he seemed to truly believe that there could be love between the two of them. He beamed with the pride that he could talk about his feelings so clearly. He leaned over to her, and kneeled down beside her, taking her hand into his cold, slimy palms.

"Do you trust in me?" He asked softly.

"_No, not in the least_," she thought dismally, but her answer was reassuring. "I do," she whispered.

"Alright." He let her pull away her hand from the grip of his fingers. "You will see how much I can do for you to keep you by my side."

It sounded rather a threat than a compliment for Teyla, but she forced a smile on her face. The aching seemed to blow up her head.

"Just give us time, Teyla," he said enthusiastically. "I'll try everything... Would you like me to bring you flowers?"

"No," she moaned. "I don't need flowers. It's another sad thing about human novels: they make you believe a few decorative plants are able to create feelings that did not exist before."

Michael hissed, and grabbed her neck with his dead-like, cool fingers, increasing her pains with the rough motion.

"It's because of my looks and my race, isn't it?" he snarled. "You can't love me since I'm a Wraith!"

She felt unable to answer. Her pain took over, she slid out of the fitful, desperate grip of the Wraith, and collapsed on the floor choking, heaving. Her suffering pressed tears out of her tightly closed eyes. Stinging, red sore was burning in her head.

"Go now... please, go," she panted. "Please."

Michael seemed to regret his previous behavior.

"I want to help you," he mumbled timidly, and put his hand on her trembling shoulder.

"Go! Please, go away!" she moaned from the pain.

He got up with a deep sigh, "Alright, I'll bring you some fresh water."

After he left, Teyla mustered enough strength to sit up again, but her whole body was shaking from the effort. Words were floating in her head from the horrid story Michael told her about the tragic novel of the couple, pictures of his monster face were flickering before her smarting eyes, and these all mixed with the pain, the wounds, the blood-drops running down on her forehead, the dizziness, the semidarkness, the pulsating branches running up and down, the reddish skin of the walls...

Teyla crawled on her knees into the bathroom belonging to her cell, then she grabbed the brim of the nearest cauldron and vomited the food she had just eaten into the greenish liquid.


	10. Chapter 9: Surgery

**Chapter 9**** – Surgery**

"It's truly interesting," Sheppard murmured as he stopped the records of the security camera at a moment where the picture of a tall, blond man appeared on the screen. The young man had the uniform of a low-ranking soldier on, and he carried no weapon, just a baseball bat, swinging it in his left hand sloppily.

"Look at this guy," John told Rodney, who was about to eat a mango. The scientist got bored with watching the records, so he decided to bring his lunch from the canteen while John was occupied with examining the pictures, and now McKay was eating his dessert.

"Who is this soldier? I've never seen him before," Rodney shrugged, and rammed two slices of mango into his mouth.

"Me neither. The strange thing is that he appears three times in the corridor leading to the place where the Daedalus rests. This is the third occasion he goes through the passage. And all this happened in the morning Teyla disappeared. What was this guy doing there?"

"Maybe, he is the one who kidnapped her," Rodney said not particularly convinced, "But he doesn't look like a kidnapper."

"He doesn't look like one?" John echoed with a surprised smile. "What kind of people are the kidnappers?"

"Well, I mean, you know, someone would not expect a handsome, self-confident, young man to hurt a woman and abduct her from her room," McKay explained.

"What?" Sheppard snapped impatiently, astonishingly troubled. "He is not handsome in the least!"

"I think he looks okay," McKay said timidly, dumbfounded by John's reaction. "What's the matter with that?"

"You have an incredibly peculiar twist in taste, if you think this jerk looks nice," Sheppard kept on fuming.

"Why not?" Rodney became indignant as well. "He is as if he has just been at a model-casting. Okay, normally I don't even notice what a man looks like, but this one is strikingly handsome."

John's face turned pale, and he was obviously trying to form a fretful retort, but at that moment the door of the lab opened with a clack, and Doctor Weir arrived.

"Oh, nice, we need a woman here," McKay snapped his fingers, "to decide which one of us is right."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Look at this nerd," Sheppard pointed at the screen directly. "Do you think he is handsome?"

Weir sighed, "You should check the records about the visitors of the resting Daedalus, not the way the cadets look."

"Okay, okay, we are on the point of doing that, just answer the question," McKay joined John's inquiry.

"You spent the whole morning peering at young soldiers and discussing their looks?" Doctor Weir asked irritated.

"No, no, no, he is the one we were searching for. Incredibly suspicious," Sheppard explained. "He appeared at least three times in the zone of the security camera in the passage leading to the Daedalus in the morning Teyla was kidnapped... Do you find him handsome or not?"

She threw a quick, unemotional glance at the screen.

"He is definitely not my type," she said with a shrug. "So, can you two focus on serious matters now? What did you find about this guy? Who is he?"

"Wait, I'll enlarge the part of the picture where the sign on his uniform can be seen." John typed something at the keyboard, and then he moved the cursor to magnify the point where the name of the soldier was fastened to his jacket. "Corporal A. Ridge," he read the name out. "Who's that?"

"No idea," Elizabeth answered pondering over the question. "I'm sure I've never seen him before. Let's check him in the database."

They searched for the young, blond corporal in the database of the Atlantisian residents and even on the members' list of the crew of the Daedalus, but they found no sign of anyone with the name of A. Ridge.

"Who the hell is this Ridge?" Sheppard wondered.

"Keep on searching for his photo in the database," Weir ordered. "Maybe he used someone else's uniform, but if he has ever been a part of the Atlantisian residents, you'll find him sooner or later."

"That will be a nice job for you, Rodney," John marked mockingly. "I'll let you peacefully seek for Ridge, I'll join Elizabeth in watching the injured Wraith's operation."

McKay wanted to respond something, but John turned away, and he left the room quickly.

"What's up with him?" Rodney asked Elizabeth a bit startled.

"I have no idea. You should know it, you spent the last couple of hours with him," she said, and she followed Sheppard out.

* * *

Doctor Beckett took a bigger scalpel from the tray his assistant was holding by his side, and he cut a thoracic muscle through to make the star-shaped heart of the Wraith visible. He started to fix a vein which was torn from a greenish, sack-like organ when the part of the Dart pierced the body through. He had already removed the huge, sharp piece of metal from her chest, and he stabilized her circulation before he could begin examining the injuries on her inwards.

Doctor Weir and John Sheppard were standing in the next room, watching the procedure through a glass wall. They both kept their eyes on the surgical instrument as it was opening the wound of the Wraith even broader. Carson was pulling out an organ with bluish bubbles around its end from the sore to examine, when the door opened behind John and Elizabeth, and Colonel Caldwell stepped in.

Weir suppressed a dejected sigh. Whenever she came across Caldwell during the day, he asked her if she had changed her mind concerning the captured Wraith, if she was ready to order the elimination of the monster. She informed him coldly that she still held on to her former decision. An irritated answer like "Go to hell!" answer began to seem more suitable to her on each occasion he came up with his accusing and aggressive questions, but she managed to swallow it and to give a correct response instead, though it turned out to be more and more difficult for her to hold herself in. She found it awkward that he joined them in the wait for the result of the operation.

Caldwell stopped not far from the doorway, and he kept silent. Every time Elizabeth inquired about the Wraith's condition from Doctor Beckett on her radio head-set, the colonel threw a withering, disdainful glance at her. Doctor Weir started to feel awfully uncomfortable because of his look. The saving of the injured Wraith was a really risky choice, she had innumerable doubts about it, and Caldwell's rigid, insulting behavior confronted her with her own misgivings. She felt like sending him out of the room, and asking him not to come back in the next few days, but she knew that starting an even more serious conflict with him would not ease her bad feelings about the case.

Sheppard did not seem to notice Caldwell's disapproval, he talked about the ambushing Wraiths and their attack, he called up the details of the battle. He needed at least ten minutes to see from the cold, tense expressions on Weir's and Caldwell's faces that something was going on between the two of them. At first he looked at Elizabeth, and then he turned to Caldwell with a questioning glimpse, just to realize that none of them was listening to him in the least. They both seemed to mime two extraordinarily unfriendly statuettes of ice. John decided to go on with the meaningless talking about combats, for an awkward silence would surely not help the situation. Caldwell's expression grew only more somber with every word John said, but Elizabeth seemed to lose some of her tenseness as she started listening to him instead of her dark thoughts.

* * *

When Carson Beckett made the sutures and finally closed the greatest wound on the Wraith's chest, Sheppard remarked, "Wraiths restore their health incredibly fast, but this one will need a few days I guess. Those injuries seem to be pretty serious."

"I hope she will be alright," Elizabeth said.

John nodded slowly, "Yes, me too. She might have valuable information for us."

"It won't be easy to persuade her to cooperate with us," Weir answered.

Caldwell did not say a thing, he just stood there in the background and made a wry smile. Doctor Weir tried to pretend that he was not in the room, she walked to the glass-wall dividing the place from the ward of the Wraith. From this position, she could not even see him.

"If she wakes up, I'll tell her that her job here is to collaborate, and that she has no other choice. I hope she'll understand that her future depends on us," John said broodingly.

"I'm not sure," Elizabeth frowned, "that she will understand. I guess, in her place I would not be persuaded that quickly either. She will try to deceive us in any way she just can. We must be really careful. Anyhow, I hope that time will work for us, and we will find a way to convince her."

The door of the room opened, and Doctor Beckett stepped in, throwing his bloody, plastic pair of gloves into the dustbin.

"She'll live," he announced, and he sat down on a chair in front of his computer. He seemed tired and exhausted.

"Nice work, Carson," Weir told him encouragingly. "You did your best."

"Well, it's not my everyday job to operate a Wraith," he answered with a sigh, turning to the screen of his computer to make some notes about the surgery. "She doesn't even have her heart at the normal place where we human have, and she has some organs completely unknown by me, I have no idea what kind of functions they might share." He opened a file and started typing.

"I'm leaving now, if you don't need me here," John announced with a yawn.

"Do that," Weir nodded. "Have a rest. Tomorrow we'll need your help to get along with our guest, if she wakes up."

Sheppard went out of the room, wishing good night to everybody. Elizabeth turned back to the glass to look at the Wraith. Caldwell crossed his arms with a severe expression on his face, and he left as well without a word. Only the quickly typing Carson and Weir remained in the room.

"He hates me," she murmured in front of her. She kept her gaze on the injured Wraith.

"Who?" Doctor Beckett asked surprised. He looked up from his computer-work.

Weir gave no answer; she just stared through the glass at the motionless body of the Wraith.

"He hates me, and he despises me," she whispered.

"You mean Colonel Caldwell?" The doctor inquired, realizing who she meant. "I don't think that he hates or despises you."

"Yes, he does! He thinks I'm incapable of handling serious situations; he even called me naive and a fool. He thinks I'm weak, he reckons me as an inept loser, completely incompetent to manage a community. The only people he respects are the egoistic, conventional, high-ranking commanders from the military like him." Elizabeth bit her lower lip as if she had been in pain instead of the injured Wraith. In the background, Carson Beckett could not help smiling.

Doctor Weir went on, "It simply gets on his nerves that a woman like me can be in charge here. My whole personality annoys him and... and..." She fell silent.

"In my opinion, he respects you for what you do here to organize everything and to make the hardest decisions alone," Doctor Beckett told her reassuringly. "He fully understands your situation."

"No, he doesn't. He just makes things more difficult every time he appears. He mocks at me, he confronts me, he retorts, he fusses..." Weir pressed her forehead against the cold glass. "Oh, God, how can someone be so tiresome?"

Doctor Beckett interjected. "You see? It's not Caldwell who hates you, it's you who hate him."

Elizabeth gave no response for a minute; she just closed her eyes wearily, pressing her palms to the cool, transparent surface. When she answered, her voice was rueful. "I don't hate him. I just can't stand the way he despises me. Well, he is a decent man, I know, and he generally manages to hide his hatred against me, but when it comes to serious matters, he can't cover up his loathing anymore. He shows how much he disrespects my point of view, how much he disdains my decisions, my personality, everything about me."

Doctor Beckett shook his head with a reproving smile. "Ain't it the same thing that he supposes you to feel about him?" he asked.

"What?" Elizabeth turned to him astonished.

"That you hate him and despise him."

"No, he has no reason to think that," she protested. "It's not me who behave like an arrogant jerk every time we have a conflict."

"I don't think that he behaves like that," Carson said. "Don't you see that it's always he who gives in finally? That's because he respects your opinion, and..."

"Oh, that's not because he would respect me or my opinion!" Weir cut off in a bitter tone of voice. "He has simply no other choice. I'm in charge here, not he. The best thing for him would be if I died!" Elizabeth turned away from the doctor, and she rushed out of the room, not waiting for Beckett's reply.

He sighed, shaking his head, and then he turned back to his computer to go on with his notes about the injured Wraith's condition.


	11. Chapter 10: Claire

**Chapter 10**** – Claire**

She opened her eyes slowly. A white, pale disk crawled in her field of vision, as she became aware of her surroundings. It was a kind of source of light, sending unhealthy, weak beams down on her face. The next thing she detected was the closeness of human beings. She felt the hunger running through her veins, and she tried to sit up, but she could not. She heard a light jingle, and she felt a rough, painful twitch at her neck. She wanted to touch what prevented her from getting up, but she could not move her arms freely either, her wrists were clamped to the surface as well. She did not need much time to realize that she was chained to the bed she was lying on. The feeling of captivity made her furious. She started screaming with rage, and tugged her chains as fiercely as she could.

* * *

When the Wraith came to her senses, Doctor Beckett was in the other room, sterilizing syringes in a tray full of transparent, cold liquid. He dried his hands with a towel, as he heard the inhuman, sharp scream from the next room, and he rushed to the glass wall. The Wraith was dragging her chains and screaming savage words in her language. The doctor informed Sheppard and Weir on his radio, and then he turned back to the glass to look at the Wraith. She did not stop struggling, though her wounds were not completely healed yet. Carson sighed, suppressing the desire to go into the room and try to stop her from tearing up her sores with her violent motions. He knew that it was not the suitable time to visit her, so he remained there standing at the wall, glaring down at the captivated Wraith, who could not see him from her position.

As Elizabeth and John joined him, he said, "She is extremely upset now, I think we should give her some time to calm down and accept her situation."

"Alright," Weir nodded. "Let's wait until she finishes screaming."

It turned out to be a long wait. The Wraith was stronger than they thought, and she did not cease fighting against her ties in spite of the horrid pain she must have gone through. She just dragged her chains and kept on screaming.

"I think I should go in now," John said finally, getting bored with waiting. "Today, I'll start our conversation with some plain and straight questions, for I want her to see what she needs to share with us if she ever wants to be free again. Then we can give her some time to think it through." He started to walk to the entrance of the Wraith's ward. Doctor Beckett wanted to stop him first, though he had to see that all his efforts would be useless, so finally he let him go in, but he followed him quickly.

The Wraith, as she heard the door opening, stopped pulling on her chains. The blank, glassy grayness of her irises reminded Doctor Beckett of a frozen kaleidoscope, in which all the colors were dead. She was staring at the ceiling motionless now. They reached her bed with slow steps.

"Hi there," John said to her calmly. "I guess you've already realized that you are a captive here."

She did not even turn in the direction of his voice, she lay there in silence.

"I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, and he is Doctor Carson Beckett, the one who operated you and saved your life. What's your name?" he asked. As she gave no answer, he went on, "First, we will find you a reasonable name. We will call you... erm..." Sheppard mused a bit over the question which name would be the proper one for the Wraith, but Doctor Beckett interjected, "We will call you Claire," he said.

"Claire? Why Claire?" John inquired.

"It's a long story," Carson shrugged. "I'll tell you once, when we have time." He turned to the injured Wraith. "So, Claire, do you accept your name?"

She gave no response.

"Okay, Claire, we have some questions to you, if you don't mind," Sheppard informed her. "First, do you know anything about a woman called Teyla Emmagan?"

Claire kept silent, she just stared at the ceiling.

"Do you know anything about this bizarre super-hive circling in the neighborhood of Atlantis?" John went on with his questions. The Wraith did not answer.

"Do you have any idea how it could be destroyed?"

Claire gave no reply.

"Okay, Claire, you are playing a foolish game," John sighed. "You are seriously injured, you'll need our help to recover. If you..."

"Who instructed the healer to save my life?" The Wraith's raspy, hoarse question had nothing to do with anything John had said before. Claire turned her head slowly in the direction of the doctor and the soldier standing by her side.

"You mean the one who gave the final order for me to heal you?" Doctor Beckett asked, raising his eyebrows.

"That's it," the Wraith answered laconically.

"It was Doctor Elizabeth Weir, the leader of our expedition," Carson explained. "Would you like to meet her? I guess she has no objections to it. Shall I call her?"

Claire said nothing, she looked up at the ceiling again.

"Would you like to speak to her?" inquired John as well, but the Wraith did not even stir, she gave no response.

"Hmm, this Claire is not the talkative kind," Sheppard made a grimace. "Do you understand that your recovery depends on us?" he asked her. She remained silent.

"Why did you beg for your life?" John went on with his questions patiently. "Why did you ask us to help you?"

Doctor Beckett intervened, when the Wraith gave no answer, "She won't talk now, I'm sure of that. Maybe she needs some more rest, we should let her sleep a bit. You can try to question her tomorrow."

Sheppard sighed, "Alright. We'll give you some time, Claire, to think your situation over. Do it thoroughly!"

The Wraith said nothing, she did not even turn in his direction. John rolled his eyes as he left the room.

"Are you hungry?" Doctor Beckett asked the Wraith.

"Yes," she answered with cold, eager glimmering appearing in her grayish, evil eyes. "Can I feed on you?"

"No, no," the doctor protested with an indulgent smile. "You won't hurt anyone here, but I have good news for you. I invented pills that can appease your hunger a bit. They are not as fine as the normal way of your feeding, but they will ease the urge caused by your hunger. I must admit, they are still in the experimental period, they're not fully tested, but if you feel like trying, just let me know."

Claire stared at the ceiling motionless again.

"Do you have great pains?" The doctor inquired, but the Wraith did not answer. "Do you need painkillers? If you do, just tell me." When he saw there was no use asking her any more questions, he nodded. "Okay, my child, rest a bit, I'll come back to you later."

"Where is my necklace?" Claire asked suddenly, turning to the doctor again.

"I'm sorry to say that, but it got seriously damaged when your Dart crashed," Doctor Beckett admitted.

"It did not crash, your associates shot me down," the Wraith remarked with a cool, unfriendly tone of voice. "And you even stole my necklace. Do you humans always try to glorify your deeds when you talk about them?"

The doctor smiled at her, "Yes, in most cases we do, but, honestly, we did not steal your necklace, I have it somewhere here..." He stepped to the night-table standing next to the bed of the injured Wraith, and he began to search in its drawer.

"Here you are," he murmured, lifting up a silver-colored pendant with a big, flat, emerald-green stone in the middle of the jewel. "The chain melted in the flames, and here, at the edge, even the pendant is a bit crooked."

Claire looked at the pendant with a searching, cutting glance.

"In fact, our scientists have already examined this pendant in our labs," the doctor explained. "We believe it could be a part of a Wraith constructed appliance..."

"You found nothing on it," she interjected dryly.

"No, we didn't, so I have the right to give it back to you."

She did not respond, just rested her eyes on him with mistrust.

"I'll give it back to you, if you want to," Carson repeated with a friendly smile.

"I do," she replied briefly.

The doctor put it down on the night-table. "I'll search a chain for it," he promised. "You can wear it around your neck again, then."

"It used to be my mother's, and she got it from her mother, and she from hers, and so on," Claire said coldly, quickly. It surprised the doctor that she talked about it, and the fact that there were family-traditions among the Wraiths astonished him even more.

"I have such a souvenir myself," he answered gleefully. "It's a vase. My great-great-great-grandfather ordered it from Venice."

"You must take good care of it." That was Claire's only response. She turned her head again upwards, and she scanned the bare ceiling with her mirthless, emotionless Wraith eyes.

"Would you like a silver or a golden chain for your pendant?" Doctor Beckett asked her, but she gave no answer. "Alright, I'll search for a nice, valuable one. Are you contented?"

She said nothing.

"Do you Wraiths like listening to music?" Carson inquired. "As long as I'm checking on my other patients, you can listen to some songs, if you want. I can ask Doctor Weir for a radio, if you desire..."

"No." Claire's voice was unemotional. "I'm not interested in human music."

"As you wish," he shrugged.

"You humans are very simple creatures," she said hoarsely; Carson was not sure, why this conclusion appeared.

"You think so, do you?" he asked quietly.

"I do," she gave her usual, brief reply.

"You know, I believe that you Wraiths are very simple creatures. Your only thought is just feeding from humans and hunting them down. It's really easy to understand. That's your only motivation."

"You think so, do you?" she threw back his former question mockingly.

Doctor Beckett opened his mouth, but he could not find a proper response, so he just adjusted Claire's blanket, and put her pendant nearer to her on the surface of the night-table. "I guess we should get to know each other before we jump to conclusions," he said finally.

Claire snorted disdainfully, "I'm not interested in getting to know you or your kind," she responded coldly.

"I know," he nodded joyfully, "That's why I suppose you Wraiths are very simple creatures."

Her features froze. It was her turn to struggle for words. The way she kept silent before was with a naturally neutral, stolid expression, but now it was obvious that she desperately wanted to give an answer, she just could not find out what. She started to breathe heavier, and her dark pupils were narrowing.

"Okay, okay, don't get mad at me," the doctor said, "I was just kidding."

Claire turned away indignantly, and she hissed a Wraith phrase in front of her, supposedly a cursing.

"Can you read human writings?" Doctor Beckett inquired, leaving their former topic. "I mean, if you can speak our language, hopefully you can read it as well. I'm just asking, because if you were able to read, I could give you some books to read, and then the time of your recovery would not be that boring," he explained. She did not say a word.

"Alright," he sighed. "I really have to go now. Have a nice rest."

Claire made a hateful grimace, as he left.


	12. Chapter 11: Awkward Conversations

**Chapter 1****1 – Awkward Conversations**

Rodney finished working on the sensor-system late in the evening; most residents of Atlantis had already gone to sleep. He stretched his back and got up from his chair. The long numbers of the codes started to dim into glimmering light-lines in front of his eyes, and when he could not chase it away anymore with a few quick blinks, he realized that he was too exhausted to go on. As he left the lab, a sudden thought occurred to him: he wanted to talk with John Sheppard about his odd behavior yesterday morning. He was just too busy with his research, and forgot about it, but now the wish to shed light on the case returned.

As he reached the corridor where Sheppard's private dwelling quarters were, he decided to try to settle things. He just did not know how to do that. As for talking about emotional matters, it was definitely not something he was used to. He was about to knock on the metallic surface of the door, but his hand stopped in the air. _First, I should think through what I'd like to inquire about_, he thought, but this idea made him more uncertain. He was not sure what exactly happened between his friend and him during the checking of the camera-records, what could cause that strange change of mood with John. What if he was mistaken and John wasn't angry with him? In that case he would just make a fool of himself. He decided to go back to his room to take a shower and try to sleep, so he turned away and made a few steps back, but then he came to a halt. What if he was not mistaken, and John was really hurt? Maybe, he said something truly offending, and he should have apologized for it? He returned to the door.

"Okay, Rodney, it'll be a few minutes' chat about trivia, nothing serious," he tried to reassure himself. "He won't laugh at you if you mention it, you just need to be as cool as possible."

He took a deep breath and knocked. As John opened the door, Rodney had butterflies in his stomach. Sheppard had his pyjamas on, and his hair was rumpled as if he had been woken up by the knock on his door, and Rodney found him so... sweet. _Well, sweet is not the right word_, he amended quickly in his thoughts. _Funny. _Yes, he looked funny as he blinked sleepily at the scientist.

"Hey, sorry for disturbing you, I just wanted to... erm..." Rodney got stuck in the middle of the sentence. He realized that he had no idea how he should have continued it.

"Come in," John invited him in gleefully, and it solved the awkward silence, McKay followed him in. He was happy that Sheppard did not seem to be affronted anymore. It might have meant that Rodney had been mistaken, and John had never been angry with him at all.

The room greeted Rodney with familiar warmth. He had already visited John three or four times with some matters that needed to be discussed immediately, though it was always a special occasion if he had the chance to enter the private room of Sheppard. He saw that the bed was made and the blanket was crumpled, so he was certain now that he woke up John. He felt a bit uneasy about it, he glanced at the other man apologetically, but as Sheppard smiled back amiably, he felt reassured. John sat down on the side of the bed, and he signed for Rodney to do the same too. McKay looked around nervously, and he caught sight of a chair in the opposite corner of the room. He took that chair, even though it was clearly not what Sheppard meant. The scientist felt somehow odd about sitting so close to John, and taking place in that distant chair gave him the illusion of comfortable stolidity.

"So, I was just coming to... er..." Rodney cleared his throat. "Yesterday morning there was a bothersome happening between the two of us, I guess..."

"What?" John asked with a smirk.

"I'm not sure," the scientist admitted, "But I felt that you got somehow hurt. Maybe, I said something, or I did what, I really don't know..."

"It's okay," John answered, still keeping a bright smile on his face. "It wasn't you, it was me."

"You? What do you mean?" Rodney looked at the other man dumbfounded.

"It was a stupid thing that came into my mind. You don't need to pay attention to it, it was really unimportant and completely off the point."

"But... what?" McKay now felt perfectly puzzled. "What was that?"

"Nothing, really nothing," John shrugged. "I don't think we should care about it."

"But-but... you seemed so affronted..." Rodney stammered. "I want to know the reason why..."

John got up from the bed, and he stepped in front of McKay, putting his left hand on the scientist's shoulder.

"I assure you it was really nothing important." He said calmly, but the way he was mysteriously avoiding to unveil the reason of his former bad mood made the whole case very bizarre and suspicious in Rodney's eyes.

"I see you don't want to talk about it..." he began, but John broke off, "It was so unimportant I even forgot what it was."

It was so obvious that he was lying, that Rodney just sat there agape, staring at him.

"You... forgot... it?" he repeated sarcastically, when he finally found words again. "Do you think I'm such an idiot that I will believe that?"

"Rodney, I think, you should go to sleep now," Sheppard said slowly. "You are tired, and maybe you just..."

"No, no, no, don't try to fool me!" The scientist got up from his chair, pushing away the other man's hand from his shoulder. "I thought we were friends or something like that, and we could talk about _things_."

"Wait, I've never said that we are not friends," John protested, but McKay walked round him and went to the door.

"You are right, I should leave now," he said sharply, and before Sheppard could have stopped him, he rushed out.

Rodney was not sure, why he left. Usually he was very stubborn, he always stuck to his questions, but now he felt that John would not share with him the reason of his behavior even if he had kept him questioning all night, and it hurt him more than he expected. He felt upset like he had never done before.

* * *

The steps of Doctor Weir going up the stairs echoed in the corridor which was full of morning light coming right through the huge windows looking at the ocean. As Elizabeth left the last corner, and reached the entrance leading to the ground where the Daedalus was resting, she stopped. She needed a minute to stand there, looking at the grayish blue waves underneath the city, preparing herself for the next conversation, and then she moaned silently and went on with her walk in the direction of the spaceship.

She found Caldwell alone in the main control room of the ship, sitting in the commander's seat and reading some reports.

"Good morning, colonel," she greeted him with a smile which was not returned.

"Good morning," he answered sternly.

"How are you?"

"What's the reason for your visit?" he asked in a strikingly unfriendly tone, neglecting her question.

"I... I've just got the report from Doctor Beckett about his examinations concerning the crew of the Daedalus," she told him, nervously adjusting the sleeves of her red jumper. "And... and I thought it would be appropriate to inform you that no member of your team has any sign of alien influence..."

"And I don't have any snakes in my head either," Caldwell added sarcastically, but he did not mean it as a light joke, his voice was cold as ice.

"No, no, of course you don't have any," she replied quickly, with a shamefaced blush appearing on her cheeks. "I'm sorry for even mentioning this Goa'uld-thing."

He gave no response. The silence began to linger on embarrassingly between the two of them, so Elizabeth went on, "Okay, that was all I wanted to say. I'd better go now and look after the new developments Zelenka made."

"Do that," Caldwell turned away from her, he did not seem to care about the fact that she came to tell him these few sentences in person, though it would have been enough to send him a message on the radio. It was so conspicuous that he excluded the opportunity to improve the miserably low quality of their relationship that Weir felt she had to say something before leaving. "Anyway, I have an hour or two free in the evening. Do you feel like joining me and playing chess?"

They used to play chess on their uneventful afternoons once or twice a week, but after the incident when Doctor Weir sent him away on the almost deadly mission to fight against the hives with the Daedalus and the help of the Orion, Caldwell did not accept her invitations anymore, he always found an excuse why he had no time to join her for a game. If it was just a coincidence or not, Elizabeth was not sure, though she suspected there must have been a connection between the two things. She made a resolution that if he declined this overture of hers again, she would make no further efforts to fraternize him.

Caldwell threw a somber glance at her, "I don't have any spare time today, I have reports to read," he told the see-through lie coolly.

"And what about tomorrow?" she risked the hopeless question, though she promised herself a moment before that she would stop trying as soon as possible.

"I can't make it tomorrow either." He did not even bother to give her an explanation why.

Doctor Weir sighed. "Okay, I understand. Well, I... I think I should really go now and check, if Zelenka..."

"How is the Wraith?" he asked sharply. "Is it still alive?"

"Yes, _she_ is, naturally. She said nothing useful so far, but..."

"How surprising!" Caldwell interjected scornfully. "Or did you expect the brilliant John Sheppard's wonderful idea to work in ten minutes?"

"Why the hell do you speak about John with this distasteful sarcasm?" she asked irritated.

"He is jealous because he is not as intelligent, handsome and laid-back as Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard," they heard suddenly from the background. Both Weir and Caldwell turned astonished in the direction of the voice. Hermiod was standing there by a bracket, typing something on a keyboard.

At first, Caldwell's cheeks turned red, and then they grew very pale as he recognized the whole meaning of what the Asgard said. He stared at Hermiod and felt an intense desire to grab his gun and shoot him down. First, it was embarrassing that his childish jealousy of John Sheppard was so obvious that even an Asgard found out about it. Secondly, the fact that Hermiod shared the colonel's thoughts about John being much better than he was, did not feel the most pleasant. And the third thing, which was the worst, that the damned Asgard had to say it in front of Elizabeth Weir. It almost drove Caldwell mad, how much Weir seemed to idolize John Sheppard, to hang on every word he said, to stand by any plan he had, and she had never even noticed Caldwell and his efforts to do the right thing or the sacrifices he made for Atlantis. And now this idiotic alien emphasized the fact in Elizabeth's presence how much Sheppard was smarter than the colonel!

He felt that protesting against the Asgard's obviously true theory would make him look even more pathetic, he knew that the simplest answer "No, no, I'm not jealous in the least" would just show how much it cut him to the quick what the Asgard said, but what else he could respond, he was not sure. He was unable to look at Weir because he did not want to see pity or taunt in her eyes, so he turned entirely in the direction of Hermiod.

"Did I say something rude?" the Asgard asked innocently as he noticed the expression on the colonel's face. "According to your human habits, was it offending what I said? Is it a bad thing to compare someone to another person?"

Caldwell began to wonder if he should have rather shot himself instead of the Asgard, it would be a much quicker way to be quit of the humiliating situation.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he snarled.

"I just came to check the alarm-system," Hermiod replied calmly.

"And who asked your opinion? We were having a private conversation with Doctor Weir, in case you did not notice..."

"Okay, I see. I only wanted to answer her question," the Asgard apologized.

Caldwell clenched his fists so forcefully that it was almost painful. He felt so awkward that he decided to simply leave as fast as possible before he would lose all that remained of his dignity.

"Alright," he nodded briefly. "I think we have finished our discussion, haven't we?" he asked quickly, and, still not looking at her or not waiting for her answer, he left the room with stiltedly calm steps.

The Asgard turned to Doctor Weir, who was biting her lower lip as she was trying hard not to say a word.

"Was it rude what I stated about him?" Hermiod inquired.

She sighed, "Yes, it was. If you want to be polite, you'd better not refer to anyone's negative feelings if they don't mention them."

"Why not?"

"Because it's an intimate, private thing. But the second part of your sentence was the really hurtful one. You should not compare someone to a person he doesn't like, especially not the way you did." As she gave the quick explanation, she wanted to leave, but the Asgard stopped her suddenly, "You are bleeding."

She came to a halt. "What?"

"Your mouth," he added.

She lifted her hand hastily, and touched her lower lip. Hermiod was right, she bit herself so violently - when she was trying to stop herself from sharing her opinion on the Caldwell-Sheppard topic, for she knew her thoughts about it were not really something she should have revealed - that her lip got surprisingly injured, and now as she took away her hand from it, she could see that her fingers were covered with red blood.

"Oh, no," she moaned, blushing. "I'll go now and... and wash it off..." she mumbled, and hurriedly left the room before the Asgard could inquire about the question how she could bit herself with such force accidentally.


	13. Chapter 12: Escape

**Chapter 1****2 – Escape**

Teyla's wound in the head continued healing. With each day it got better, and now, as she put her nape to the moist wall of the cell, she did not get dizzy from the moving of her neck.

"Oh, fine," she breathed, and a faint smile appeared in the corner of her mouth.

As Michael arrived with her breakfast, a bowl of mushy, gray grunge, she had already taken a bath - she could do everything on her own now.

"Good morning, darling," he greeted her. Teyla wondered if it was a good idea to let him try to persuade her to fall in love with him.

"Thank you," she whispered as she accepted the mush from him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course," he nodded.

She put the bowl aside. "Will you, please, embrace me?"

A smile appeared on his face, which was a rare thing to happen. "Are you sure you want it?" he asked, nervously clenching his fists.

"Yes, I can't be more sure," she answered calmly, "I want to feel you close to me."

The naive, simple light in his eyes nearly broke Teyla's heart. She got up from the floor, he leaned over to her, and she snuggled up into his cold arms. The next moment she grabbed his weapon, whipping it out of his belt, and she shot in the middle of his chest. Michael doubled up with the pain, but his Wraith body was strong enough to keep him on his feet, so she needed to shoot once again. This time the bluish lightning of the beam hit him so forcefully that he flew into the corner.

She turned away and ran out of the cell, which proved to be easy, considering the fact that the Wraith left the rails open as he came in. She rushed through the corridor, then she turned left. She had absolutely no idea where she should go, she just wanted to flee. For a while, she did not have a problem, she had to hide behind a corner once because a few Wraith guards marched across the passage, but they did not notice her. The difficulty came later, as she started to get exhausted. Her concussion was not completely healed, and she had other wounds from Michael's baseball bat hits on her body which began to ache more and more. At first her left knee shook, and she nearly fell onto the ground, then her head made the world turn around her. Staggering, she leaned against the wall.

His voice echoed in her head, she fancied hearing his steps everywhere around her, especially from behind, but every time she turned back, no one was there.

"No, no, I should not move my head so much, it makes me giddy," she told herself, but she could not help it, when she heard those steps, she turned back again and again.

She fell onto the floor. Her limbs were like heavy sacks filled with lead; she felt that she could not go on. She dragged herself behind a hanging offshoot of the organic ceiling, then she lay down, panting.

"Oh, no, he will find me," she thought dismally, "I should have killed him... I should have killed him... I should have..."

She closed her eyes. These negative images took her endurance away. She turned the lines of her thoughts to Atlantis. She imagined her friends there, the people she loved, and it gave her strength. She kneeled up, grabbed the gun again, and she scrambled a few yards more. She thought of Elizabeth, John, Rodney, Doctor Beckett, her Athosian friends, and in spite of her pain she made a sad smile. She missed these wonderful people so much, and probably she would never see them again... And then, there was no one else she could think of, just Ronon. Ronon, he was the one she missed the most, and imagining his encouraging expression gave her strength. She fancied him saying to her "Just fight, Teyla, fight, you can do it".

She found an empty room, and she decided to cross it, so she stumbled in. She was about to sit down for a few moments and have some rest, but suddenly she felt a hand grabbing her hair with incredible force, and her body got pushed to the wall.

"You damned bitch, you betrayed me!" she heard the hysteric screaming of Michael, and her head was knocked against the wall once more.

She clasped his knees with her right leg, tugging him down. He fell upon her. She kicked him off of her body, and she wanted to grab the weapon, but he was quick enough to pull her back.

"You can't go anywhere from here," Michael growled into her ear. "If you can escape from me, the other Wraiths will find you and kill you. There's no place you can hide. You either die or remain my captive forever!"

"I have really no idea which one is the most horrible option!" she retorted, pushing her heel into his stomach, making him climb off of her, and she could reach the gun now. She took it, and turned it in the Wraith's direction, but he grabbed it at the same time, and he pulled it out of her hands with such force that she could not resist it.

"Kill me, then, you sick son of a bitch," she hissed. He turned the weapon in his hands just to snap its end into her face so violently that she went sprawling on the floor. She wondered if he fractured her jawbone and two or three of her teeth with that hit. She wanted to sit up, but Michael pushed her back.

"You did not deserve my care," he shouted furiously. "Now you will see what you did to me."

She spat her blood in his eyes, and taking advantage of his astonished, brief moments of blindness, she wrested the gun out of his hands and shot at him. He fell onto the floor, screaming from the pain.

"I'm killing you this time, you bastard," she panted. "I'm truly killing you..."

She aimed at him, and she was about to shoot many more times to take his life away, but she stopped. Her heart missed a beat; she thought of the childish happiness on Michael's face when he talked about the chance of falling in love with each other, she thought of the miserable cake he baked, the hug he gave her with no hesitation when she asked him to do so...

The gun slipped out of her fingers because she let it go, she did not hold it anymore. She collapsed on the ground, sobbing. She stayed there, crying on the floor for long minutes, until something hit her from behind with enormous force, and she lost her consciousness. When she came to her senses again, she felt Michael's hands gripping her ankles, and he dragged her through the corridors, drawing her by her legs. A thin line of blood was streaming from the corner of her mouth, and it made a red trace where he dragged her.

* * *

When he arrived at her cell, he pushed her body in the corner.

"I've lost faith in you," he snarled at her. "I've lost it forever."

He knocked her shoulder with the toe of his boot. Teyla's tormented body curled up on the hard floor with the pain that swept through her muscles from his kick.

"Please, don't hurt me," the desperate moan burst out of her. "I'm sorry for leaving you. I'm very thankful to you for taking care of me. Please, stop it!"

"I can never trust you!" Michael screamed with mad rage. "You've betrayed me, you've always lied to me."

"Michael, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry... Please, let's try it again."

"It's too late to say that," he hissed. "You lost your last chance."

He was about to kick her again, but she grabbed his robe, and she said to him, looking him straight in the eye, "Stop it, Michael. I love you."

The Wraith stared at her with mere astonishment. He completely forgot about hurting her, he kneeled down beside her and rested his eyes on her wonderingly.

"Do you really love me? Honestly?" he asked surprised.

"I do," she answered with no hesitation.

He put his hands softly to her neck and lifted her head up from the ground. He was about to kiss her, when he saw her lips tremble with loathing. She tried to suppress her abomination, but she could not. He let her fall back on the floor and at the same moment she was about to grab his gun at his belt. She could not reach it. He got up with somber bitterness on his face.

"You lied to me again!" He turned away from her. "Now you made your situation really bad for yourself. Maybe you didn't believe that I would be capable of hurting you more than I did before, but I am, and I know well what would cause you the greatest pain. I will kill your best friends... Rodney McKay, John Sheppard, Elizabeth Weir and Ronon," he recited with dark hatred burning in his eyes. "I will kill them and I will bring their cut-off heads for you. Here, you can hang the heads over there on the wall."

He made a gesture towards the left-hand side of the cell.

"What?" she groaned. "No, you would never hurt them! You can't... you just simply can't..."

"Yes, I can. I've already made a plan how to get them all killed. That's what you deserve. You will stare at the rotting heads of your best friends for the rest of your life!"

"Michael, no!" she screamed, crawling on her knees to the entrance, but she could not stop him from leaving. "Please, don't do a thing to my friends. I'm begging you."

He locked the cell. "Now you believe me? Nice. You will see how beautifully I arranged everything. That's my revenge on you pathetic humans..."

"No! If you really do it, I will hate you. I will hate you forever," she moaned desperately.

"I don't give a damn. You yourself told me that you were unable to ever love me. Well, I don't need your love anymore, I just want to see you suffer. You will rot in this cell with the dead bodies of your friends." He walked away with slow, calm steps, which was in perfect contrast to his disjointed, mad laughter echoing through the place.

"You sick beast!" she cried out. "You disgusting, foul, heartless monster..."

She collapsed on the floor, feeling rage and sorrow because of her helpless situation. She must have had at least one rib broken and her jawbone split from the hits of the Wraith, the pain burnt her body with a twinge. Her heart filled with anguish as she realized that Michael really meant what he said. He truly had a plan, supposedly a very shifty one, how to do harm to her friends, and as far as she knew him, she suspected that he had something deeply wicked and hurtful on his mind.


	14. Chapter 13: Turtles

**Chapter 1****3 – Turtles**

The automatic door of the Wraith's ward opened with a silent glide, and Doctor Beckett arrived with a tray in his hands. A bowl of salad and a glass-porringer full of blue jelly stood on the metal surface, bumping to each other with quiet tinkling as the doctor carried them to Claire's night-table.

"What's that?" the Wraith asked, suspiciously observing what Carson was doing.

"My lunch," he answered as if it was the most natural thing in the whole universe. "You've been lying here alone for eight hours now, and I thought you could really use some company, so I decided to join you for lunch."

Claire's hairless eyebrows wandered in the direction of the top of her pale, greenish forehead as she lifted them up with scornful dismissal. "You think that I will talk about Wraith secrets just because you are trying to keep me company?" she asked coldly. "Even though you are a human, you really shouldn't be that primitive."

"I don't think we should talk about secrets," the doctor shrugged. "I'm not interested in technical details of hives or anything like that." He pulled a chair to the night-table, and he started mixing his salad-dressing with a spoon. "Well, if you feel like discoursing on technique, I can call a scientist or a military officer, but it's definitely not my cup of tea."

"Why are you here, then?" Her question was full of distrust.

"I've already told you why. Even though you are a Wraith, you really shouldn't be that paranoid," he added with a shrewd smile.

Claire snorted indignantly, and she gave no response. Carson did not force the conversation; he was picking his salad in silence. Finally it was Claire, who started talking again.

"Is it a kind of plant?" she inquired, making a slight motion with her head in the direction of the bowl the doctor was eating from.

"Yes, it's from the planet MS6-865, these leaves taste very similar as roquette on the Earth. Oh, okay, you don't know roquette either."

"And you don't feel sorry for this plant, do you?" she asked.

"Nope, not really."

"I don't see, then, why you humans always suppose that we should feel remorse when we feed on you..."

"I guess there is a difference between a bunch of roquettes and me," the doctor interjected, smiling.

"When it comes to feeding, I have to say no, there is no difference. You eat the plant, and I eat the energy of the humans."

"I understand what you mean," Carson responded between two bites of salad, "And I do think that you are right from this point of view, but it doesn't change the fact that we always have to be on the opposite sides. It's the course of nature that we humans can't accept the way of your feeding, and you Wraiths can't give up hunting us down."

She nodded. Doctor Beckett ate the rest of his lunch in silence, while she peered at the ceiling motionless. He threw a glimpse at her wrists, and he saw that her flesh was torn up and covered with bluish, rugged-sided wounds where the straps held her– it was obvious that she spent the last eight hours with the useless dragging of her ties.

"I'll bring you a salve for those sores," the doctor noted, turning back his eye once more to her wrists and then to the bruised circle around her neck.

She gave no answer.

"What else would you like me to bring you?" he inquired. "I'll ask Doctor Weir if I can give you a book to read, okay?"

"Do what you want to do, it's all the same what I'd like to," she responded coolly. Carson smiled contentedly, because it was a good improvement that she reacted to this question at all.

"Alright, rest a bit, I'll be back soon," he said amiably, lifting up his tray and heading for the door.

* * *

As he stepped into the ward later, he found Claire dragging her chains again with all her strength.

"Oh, oh, my child," the doctor shook his head reprovingly. "If you don't cease it, you might cripple the muscles in your shoulders or break your _scapulae_, not to mention those horrid splits on your skin."

He put down a thin book and a black cream china-jar on her night-table. "First I'll take care of your sores," he told her, opening up the jar with a clack. She stopped pulling on her chains, and she stared up at him without uttering a word, while he smeared the salve all over her newly acquired bruises. After he finished it, he took off his plastic-gloves and lifted up the volume from the night-table.

"This book is about all kinds of tortoises," he explained.

"About _what_?" Claire asked apathetically.

"Tortoises are little, green colored, cute animals on the Earth, I've always wanted to keep some of them as pets. Actually, this book is from my personal collection, because Doctor Weir banned me to bring you Atlantisian scripts, so I had to search for something else. Are you interested in this book?"

For the doctor's greatest surprise, the Wraith nodded, "Yes, I want to read it."

Carson did not really believe that she would be satisfied with a book about animals, but Claire seemed quite contented. She tried to reach out for it, but her hand was tugged back violently by her chains.

"Wait a minute, I'll slacken one strap on your right hand so that you can hold the book..." He took the strap, and began to loosen it at her right wrist, but at this moment the door of the ward opened, and John Sheppard stepped in.

"Carson, what the hell are you doing?" he asked astonished.

Doctor Beckett stopped undoing the hooks of the chains, and he turned to the arriving man with an embarrassed expression on his face. "I was just... erm..."

"I saw what _you were just doing_," John snorted, "And that's definitely not something you should've done. It's strictly prohibited to allow the Wraith to move any of her limbs freely. What did you think? Her first motion would be to grab you and drain all your life out of you..."

"I just wanted to give the book to her," the doctor muttered.

John rolled his eyes. He took the book out of Carson's hands and had a skim through it.

"It's completely innocent," Doctor Beckett explained, ducking. "It's nature study about tortoises."

"I'm sure she wanted to read it because she believed there were allusions to the Earth's sidereal position in it," John marked with a cynical smile, and he threw the book away onto a distant shelf. Claire followed the motion with her rigid, cold glance, but she did not say a word.

"Elizabeth allowed me to give the book to her," Carson apologized. "I thought it would be beneficial to let Claire spend her days with something more interesting than lying here in silence..."

"She is a captive, so she doesn't get hotel room service," John retorted sarcastically. "It's not our aim that she could feel better here than at home."

"She is chained to a bed! I'm pretty sure there is no chance that she would feel alright," the doctor shook his head.

"I don't think that we should start an argument about it here," Sheppard said, turning away. "You either come out with me to talk about our captive, or you should accept the fact that she can't be treated as a poor victim."

"I did not save her life just to push her into a situation even worse than dying," the doctor gave his riposte.

"You saved her life because you got the order to do so, and you don't need to be sentimental about it."

"No. I saved her life because she asked us to help her."

They heard a sudden clink from the bed, when Claire made an astonished motion as she realized what Doctor Beckett meant with his last sentence. Her grey, unreadable eyes mirrored the picture of the two men facing each other.

"Alright, for me it's all the same why you are healing her, but you must promise me one thing: that was the last time you talked so nicely to this beast," John told Carson with an earnest expression on his face. "And take that ridiculous book away from here, you really don't need it to take the place from medical equipment."

John made a disdainful flick in the direction of the shelf, and then he left the room.

"Well, okay, I think we should give up this reading-thing, anyway, you can't hold the book yourself with your hands chained to this bed..." The doctor said with a rueful sigh. He noticed the disappointed, wistful glimpse shot at the book by Claire; it was the moment when he understood that the Wraith was truly interested, and she did not just let him bring the book to make him stop inquiring about what she wanted to do, but she really felt like reading it. He looked at her wonderingly, and finally he said, "Alright, I will read out for you."

The left corner of Claire's mouth squirmed, but only slightly, the motion was nearly invisible. "Why would you do that?" she asked. Her voice was as mistrustful as before.

"Maybe I have so much free time that I have no other idea how to spend it," he said with a gleeful twinkle.

The Wraith inhaled sharply. "You don't really mean it, do you?"

"Of course not. I slept altogether ten hours in the last four days, because I've been working on the capsule to ease the Wraith hunger, some of the residents got bitten by a raging dog-like creature which was bought as a pet from the Athosians, their wounds keep on leaking, trickling an unknown, green liquid, so their sores need to be re-dressed every two hours, I furnished this room for you, and, well, your six-hour-long operation took some of my time away too..."

"How much sleep do you humans normally need?" she inquired.

"Approximately seven to eight hours per day."

"Then you need to sleep now, don't you?"

Carson stepped to the shelf where John threw the book, and he brought the volume to Claire's bed. "Don't care about it," he told her with a friendly smile. "I'll read out the introduction by the manager of the Aquapark Oklahoma and the first chapter about red-eared sliders, and afterwards I'll still have some time to take a rest."

He stood a chair next to her bed, he took place and opened the book. He held it in a way she could look at the pictures if she wanted, and he started to read out.

* * *

John Sheppard stopped at Doctor Weir's office, and he popped in. "Elizabeth, do you have a few moments?"

She looked up from the report she was writing on her palmtop to the Stargate Command. "Yes, for you, even minutes," she said with a smile. "Sit down."

He took a few steps in, his face was ruminative. "Actually, I wanted to talk about Carson."

"What's up with him?"

"He seems to be too nice to our captive. I understand that he saved her life and he feels responsible for her, but he shouldn't get involved that much..."

"Consider the fact, that he is the only person whom the Wraith talks to, she refuses to speak to anyone else. You were there six times in her ward in the last two days, and she didn't even turn in your direction. Maybe, we can use the fact that Carson gets on quite well with her."

"If it were just about persuading that monster, that would be okay with me as well, but you should have seen him an hour ago. He was about to free one arm of that beast just to give her a book... He nearly killed himself! If I had not been there to stop him in time, the Wraith could have eaten him alive."

Doctor Weir narrowed her eyes. "Well, that sounds truly scary. I'll talk with him about it."


	15. Chapter 14: Necklace

**Chapter 1****4 – Necklace**

Colonel Caldwell was sitting on the edge of the balustrade surrounding the great balcony of the Atlantisian city complex. The weather was nice, golden sunbeams were falling onto the metal surface of the buildings and dancing on the transparent windows. The colonel was holding his palmtop on his left knee, and he was looking down at the screen, examining the picture of a chess board. He pressed a button on the keyboard, making the queen slide across the black and white fields until it reached the desired position in the opposite corner of the board.

"Is it more interesting to play chess against you than against me?" he heard the biting question, and as he turned in the direction of the voice, he saw Elizabeth Weir standing not far from him, watching the screen of his palmtop with her eyebrows raised. He exited the chess-game program with an indignant click.

"I was just checking on a combination of moves, but, anyway, it's none of your business how I spend my free time," he replied brusquely.

"Oh, so you have free time now?" she asked with an animated smile, neglecting his unfriendliness. "I'm sure you have an hour for me, then. I'll bring my palmtop right now, and we can play a match..."

"No, you don't need to bring it," Caldwell got up from the side of the metal balustrade and closed his palmtop. "I'm going now to look at how the scientists get on with the resettling of the beam-technology database of the Daedalus."

Doctor Weir was smart enough to fake diplomatic stolidity on her face, though his answer hurt her extremely. She was angry with herself for trying to be nice to him in spite of the fact that she knew beforehand how mindless it was, in spite of the fact that last time she had promised herself not to try it again and in spite of the fact that it would have been much easier to return his hostility than to make a fool of herself with her hopeless efforts to straighten up things.

"Are you doing this to me because I sent you away on the almost suicidal mission with the Orion, or because I mentioned the Goa'uld case when Teyla disappeared, or because I ordered Doctor Beckett to save the Wraith?" she asked resentfully. "Or you just can't stand my presence so much that you feel unable to spend an hour with me?"

Caldwell's muscles stiffened, and, for a moment, he seemed unable to find words to answer, but then he slowly took a breath and gave a brief response, "All four of these options."

He turned away from her and started to walk in the direction of the inner parts of the city complex. She rushed after him and made him come to a halt by stepping in his way.

"You can stay, if you want," she said to him, forcing calmness in her voice. "I'm outta here, I just came to see what you were doing and to talk with you a bit, but, okay, I see now how stupid of me it was to do so. Sorry for disturbing you." She left with quick steps, fighting hard to keep her paces composed and placid.

When she was about to take the stairs in the direction of the Control Room, she nearly bumped into Doctor Beckett, who was hurrying down right from there. "Oh, Elizabeth, nice to see you here," he said ardently. "I've been searching for you."

"Is it something urgent?" she inquired, hoping that nothing bad had happened to the captured Wraith.

"No, I just wanted to ask for your permission if I can give this to Claire." The doctor showed her a necklace, a chain from white gold. "Lindsey Novak wanted to pass me something in return because I've been caring for her wounds for almost two weeks, and because I gave tranquilizer to her mutant dog bought from the Athosians instead of killing it, and now it's quite a nice pet. When she heard that I was searching for a chain for Claire, she insisted on giving this to me. Novak said she wouldn't wear it anyway."

"You want to give a necklace to a Wraith? Carson, it sounds a bit... uhm... creepy," Weir answered, stepping closer to him.

"No, no, no, you've misunderstood it, it's not a present. Do you remember that Claire had a necklace with a special pendant? I just want to replace the damaged chain. I promised her."

She still had a worried expression on her face. "Why did you promise _anything_ to a Wraith?"

"Because I saw that this necklace was important for her..."

"So what?"

"So I made a guess that if I gave it back to her, it would improve her attitude towards us."

Elizabeth looked him in the eye pensively. "Carson, who is Claire you named our captive after?"

"It's a long story," he responded with a casual flick of his hand. "I'll tell you when we have more time."

"I have enough time now to discuss this question."

"I'm sorry, but I don't," the doctor apologized. "I have to visit Novak and the other victims attacked by her dog, and then..."

"Okay, I see," she cut him off quickly, she had enough of being dismissed for the day. "You don't want to share it with me, it's alright, but be careful, you shouldn't be too partial about that monster. Don't forget that we represent food to her, and this fact is unchangeable. She can't be anything else, just our enemy."

"I know, I know," he nodded. "I have a bad opinion of Wraiths, you don't need to worry that I turn out to be their friend."

"I didn't mean that. I know that you are not a friend of the Wraiths."

"Then, what's bothering you?"

"Just... just promise me that you'll be careful. It's an incredibly risky thing that we brought this monster to Atlantis, and I don't want you to top it with getting into trouble..."

"I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself," Carson answered gleefully, and he took a few steps backwards, in the direction of a door. "And now, if you could excuse me, I have to look after my patients. So, can I give the necklace to Claire or not?"

Elizabeth nodded vaguely. "Do as you think fit."

The doctor left, smiling contentedly, while she folded her hands chillingly. She started to feel worse and worse ill about the whole situation that a Wraith was nursed in the heart of the city, and Carson's blindfold behavior just enhanced her bad intuition.

* * *

Doctor Beckett walked into the ward, and he stopped not far from Claire's bed. The Wraith was lying silently, but he could clearly see that her wounds on her skin at the places where the straps chained her to the bed were torn up again from her trials to free herself.

"How are you today?" he asked from her thoughtfully.

"You didn't come this morning to read out for me," she hissed. "Are you beginning to get bored with playing the role of the friendly, care-taking healer who listens nicely to everything what the lonely, gullible captive might let out?"

Doctor Beckett sat down comfortably on the chair next to her bed, showing her with a smile that he became amused at her reaction. "I didn't come this morning, since I was searching for something and that took my time," he explained.

She made a grimace and did not inquire about what the doctor had been seeking for. Carson did not wait for her to ask it, he pulled out the white golden chain from the pocket of his medical robe and took her pendant from the night-table. He threaded the pendant with the emerald-like stone on the chain with mindful cautiousness, and then he showed it to the Wraith.

"Are you contented?" he asked from her.

She gave no response, just stared at him with unreadable glitter in her grayish eyes.

"Lift your head up a bit, please," he told her, and she obeyed without any hesitation, as far as her ties let her do it. He put the jewel around her neck and clasped it with a light click.

"Now you got it back," he hemmed in front of himself.

"Thank you," she said suddenly. Doctor Beckett's smile widened, he did not really expect her to show gratitude, it was a nice surprise for him that she did so. "I see this necklace is truly important for you," he remarked.

"Yes, it is. It's the reason why I asked your friends to save me and not let me die there in the desert."

Carson's astonishment grew even greater. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I didn't want this necklace to rust alone, wasted in a gray, endless sand-sea. I've been planning to present it to my future spawn, it has been the only dream of mine. I didn't want to give it up."

"So you have no Wraith children so far?" the doctor inquired. "You have no family? Or I don't know how I should put it..."

"I see what you mean," she answered slowly, "But you have to know a few things about Wraiths and the connection between us to understand things. We lay eggs, and we leave these eggs alone in damp, dark caves or in special incubators aboard a hive, and that is the last time we see them. We'll never know if our eggs hatch and turn out to be healthy spawns or if they rot with no life originating from them. I have no idea if I have any living descendants or not."

"Uhh... What?" Carson blinked at her dumbfounded.

"I know that for you humans, who spend your whole life with your children, it's strange to imagine a life without family ties..."

"Oh, no, no, I got what you said, and it's okay, but how do you want to give the necklace to your spawn if you have not the faintest idea which Wraith is your descendant?"

"The same way my mother gave it to me," she replied calmly. "She squeezed the pendant through the soft, flexible shell of my egg, and when it hatched and I came to my senses, I found this jewel next to me, and I know it's from my mother and she got it from hers and so on because Wraith mothers show with a heritable piece of jewelry how much they care for their spawns."

"Wow, that's interesting," Carson enthused, "But if you have only this one piece of necklace, what did you give to your other eggs?"

Claire's pupils were narrowing.

"Nothing," she answered in an unemotional, cool tone of voice. "Those eggs were of an unhealthy color and they were small, I'm almost sure they never hatched. I want to leave this pendant for a big, properly flexible egg, because I want to make sure that a living spawn finds it."

"Oh, okay, I see," the doctor said. "It sounds a bit cruel to me, but I understand that there are differences in the ways we see this question..."

"It's not cruel in the least," she reflected on it. "You know, all my life I've been wearing this necklace with the greatest pride, with the feeling that I'm special, because my mother chose me to possess her pendant. If she had given jewels to all of her spawns, I couldn't experience this pleasure of knowledge that I'm important. I want one of my spawns to feel the same way I do."

Doctor Beckett mused a bit over the things she said, and then he nodded wordlessly.

"It's hard to make you understand it, I know," she went on, "You humans have a very twisted sense of personal relationships, but I think the way you see them is just over-reacting simple things."

Carson laughed as he heard her opinion. "From your point of view, I'm sure you're right, we make a great fuss about emotional attachments, but if you examine the question more thoroughly, these personal relationships are not simple at all. They make our lives more beautiful..."

"Or more miserable," she added scornfully.

"Yep, sometimes they do."

"I don't envy you for these feelings. They must be perplexing and unpleasant, not to mention the mixed up habits and the bizarre traditions you humans built around these superfluous things."

"I think..." The doctor could not go on with sharing his opinion on the topic, because the door of the ward opened, and John Sheppard marched in, followed by four armed soldiers.

"It's time to escort our captive down to the basement into the Wraith cell," he announced. "She is obviously fit enough to walk on her own now, she doesn't need to occupy a ward anymore."

Doctor Beckett put his hands anxiously on the edge of Claire's bed. She seemed a bit apprehensive too, her flat nostrils started to extend slightly as her breathing quickened. "Well, maybe you'll have a better place there," the doctor told her encouragingly. "There won't be straps to fasten you to a surface of a bed..."

"Carson, don't you have other things to do, for example in the infirmary?" Sheppard interrupted him with sarcasm in his voice. "This monster will be quite alright with us."

"Okay, okay, don't be so offensive, I was just trying to explain what will happen to her," the doctor replied, and he obediently left the room with a sad expression on his face. Claire followed his steps with a dull, gloomy look in her eyes.


	16. Chapter 15: Trouble

**Chapter 1****5 – Trouble**

"Elizabeth, I definitely think that we should forbid Carson to visit her," John said firmly, standing in the door of Weir's office. He kept his gaze on the woman sitting at the other side of the desk.

"Trust him," Elizabeth answered calmly. "He is not a naive fool; he knows exactly what he is doing. She cannot circumvent him, I know."

"Oh, don't tell me that it's a normal thing that he read out a book about turtles to that monster, and now he gave her another one, if I remember well, it's about chinchillas. And even that necklace... Elizabeth, he is losing control! He feels so sorry for her that he mistakes her for an innocent patient of his, and that shrewd, sly beast takes the chance to deceive him!"

"Trust him," she repeated with cool determination, though she needed all the ability she gained during her years as a diplomat to pretend that she was not worried in the least. "He is one of the most respectable persons I know, so I trust him..."

"Okay, okay, I like Carson as well, that's not the point," John squelched her. "The problem is not that I don't trust him. I just don't trust that slippery, malignant monster."

"We brought her to Atlantis," she said with sadness in her greenish eyes, "Now we can't back out of this anymore."

"Yes, we can. We can ban Carson from visiting her, or we can execute this beast anytime we deem it necessary."

Elizabeth got up from her chair, and she clenched her left hand on her right wrist behind her back anxiously, though her response showed categorical staidness. "I won't handle Carson as an incapable child; I won't forbid a thing to him. He can decide what is expedient for him, and what is deleterious. And I won't order the execution of Claire after having spent more than a week healing her and keeping her alive, especially if Carson began to like her!"

"Elizabeth, I think you are making a big mistake passing by Carson's naivety. We should lock him out of the great room containing Claire's cell. He visits her at least eight times a day, he has his meals with her instead of having them in the canteen, and he spends more time with her than with any other patient... I'm afraid he begins to trust her."

"And what if she begins to trust him too? Wasn't it your purpose when you brought her to our city to persuade her to cooperate with us?" she objected. "When you convinced me to order Carson to heal her, you told me that you believed her to be able to stand in with us."

"But Carson becoming Wraith nutrition wasn't my purpose! I think you should order the elimination of that monster or lock Carson completely out before he does something irreversible..."

"No." Doctor Weir replied immovably, "I'm holding on to my former decision, she stays alive, and Carson can visit her anytime he considers it useful."

Sheppard gave in. "Alright, I'll try to be a bit more optimistic. Maybe he can truly find a way to persuade that beast," he said, but his voice did not sound convincing.

A smile appeared on Elizabeth's face. "I guess Colonel Caldwell should see us once, when we are arguing about a decision," she remarked.

"Why?"

"Because he believes that I always do what you say to me, without even weighing anything else up."

"That's funny," John returned her smile, "Because you generally don't give the orders I suggest, only on about half of the occasions."

"Well, I suppose the colonel believes so because it happens even much more often that I agree with you than that I agree with him about what the best way would be to solve a problem."

"Yeah, that's true. Maybe..." John could not go on, because Weir's radio head-set buzzed on the surface of the desk. "Doctor Weir to the Camera Room, please," the snappy voice of a sergeant echoed in the office.

She put the head-set on hurriedly and switched on the channel. "I'm on my way," she replied, leaving the room with quick steps, signing for Sheppard to follow her.

"I ordered a sergeant to check all the footages concerning every suspicious area where that mysterious Corporal Ridge might have shown up," she explained to him while they stepped into the transporter.

"I don't see how Ridge could get into the city. He is not in any database, he has never ever served in Atlantis or aboard the Daedalus," John wondered, pressing the point on the glass-map they wanted to reach.

"When I showed the portrait of Ridge to some of the scientists who kept repairing a malfunction aboard the ship when Teyla was abducted, they could recognize him, they saw this guy roaming aboard the Daedalus that morning, but they all thought he was one of our citizens. They suspected nothing wrong."

"He seems almost alright at first sight, the only thing that bugs is his malicious smile."

"Not to mention the disgustingly easy-going way he is swinging the baseball bat, though he surely used it a few minutes before to beat a woman until bleeding," she added.

"That guy is a total creep, how the hell could no one notice it aboard the Daedalus?"

Elizabeth sighed, "You know scientists. They were busier with the cables and the monitors than with a nerd carrying a bloody baseball bat and carrying a woman's body wrapped in a blanket through the Control Room of their ship..."

"Hey, hey, hey, just don't say sweeping generalizations." They heard Rodney McKay's voice, and the scientist stepped out of the entrance of a lab next to the transporter. "There are some scientists who are very attentive and perceptive, always aware of their surroundings, with great knowledge of human psyche and..."

"Please, don't say that you consider yourself to be one of them," John interrupted him with a bantering smile.

Rodney neglected Sheppard's sentence, he turned to Elizabeth. "May I join you?" he asked. "I have something to talk to you about."

"Okay, come," she nodded briefly, "We are on our way to the Camera Room. What would you like to share with me?"

"With the help of Hermiod, we were able to resettle the database of the beam-technology system of the Daedalus, and we found out where Ridge teleported Teyla's wounded body: he teleported her to the tarmac of the puddle jumpers. Or have you heard of it yet? I asked Colonel Caldwell to inform you."

"The colonel doesn't talk to me anymore, I guess I totally screwed up things with him somehow," Weir replied woefully, "So it's better if _you_ tell me about the new developments in detail."

Rodney started to explain to her how they managed to get back the deleted information. In the meantime, they reached the room where the camera records were stored. Ronon was already in, staring at the monitor where the sergeant was examining a picture.

"I wanted you to have a look at this, Ma'am," the sergeant signed for Weir and pointed at the smaller monitor on his left. He started to play the footage by pressing a button on the keyboard. The record showed the young, blond Ridge walking across a corridor and stopping at the entrance of the hall where the puddle jumpers were stocked. He leaned to the panel controlling the alarm system, opened it up with a practiced motion; he took out a yellowish, flat crystal, and then put it back turned to the other side. The features froze on the faces of the observers, watching Ridge manipulating the protecting system of that room about two weeks ago.

"He is not a human," Doctor Weir said suddenly. "Even Rodney McKay would be unable to handle these systems with such ease, and as far as we know, Rodney is the most educated person in the two Galaxies when it comes to Ancient technology."

"Not just _as far as we know_," they heard McKay's slightly affronted voice from the background. "I'm the best, it's unquestionable."

"Okay, so the point is that this guy is either possessed by the mind of an alien form of life, or he is a complete alien," Elizabeth concluded, making a motion towards the picture of the corporal in question.

"It seems probable," Sheppard nodded, "but why the hell did he need Teyla? Where did he carry her?"

"It was a high risk for him to abduct her. He must have had his reasons to take a chance on the whole action," Ronon murmured in front of himself. "He either hates Teyla very much, or..."

"... or he loves her," John finished the sentence for him.

Ronon's face turned pale. "Teyla never mentioned any stalker following her and trouble her, so I think we should examine the hatred option," he snorted.

"Don't leave out the possibility that she might have had an intimate relationship with this mysterious Corporal Ridge," Sheppard said. "What if things went bad between the two of them? She might have dumped him, or..."

"Maybe she made him jealous," Ronon joined in the idea, gnashing his teeth. "She might have done a million things she shouldn't have..."

"Will you, please, stop blaming Teyla?" Weir intervened sharply. "All the same why the abduction happened to her, it was not her fault, I'm sure of that. If someone gets attacked so brutally, it's never the fault of the victim. Even if she had a romantic relationship with Ridge, which I absolutely doubt, she would never provoke someone into beating her and kidnapping her leaving huge blood-pools behind."

Ronon seemed to regret his previous fury. "You are right," he told Weir with shamefaced quietness. "It's not Teyla's fault."

"Okay, let's get back to the origin of our conversation," she suggested. "If we are talking about an alien form of life, which is quite familiar with Ancient technique and even able to handle an Asgardian database, Ridge must be presumably either a Goa'uld or a Wraith. My guess is a Wraith, because he showed extreme knowledge at switching off the protecting system of the jumpers."

"The Wraiths might need Teyla for examining her ability to feel their presence and to join their lines of communications," Rodney remarked in the background.

"Yes, it's not a bad idea, but this attack seems different," John shook his head. "I would say that even if there was an objective reason for kidnapping her, this guy must have felt it personal..."

"Okay, so we are back to the thought that he either hated or loved her," Ronon growled. "Do we know about an alien with these kinds of feelings for her?

They all looked at each other questioningly, but none of them could give a useful response.

"I think we should search her room thoroughly, maybe we can find signs who this human-looking alien can be," Ronon suggested.

"No, that's out of the question," Doctor Weir shook her head. "Those are Teyla's private things, and anyway, you've already checked everything that seemed suspicious in her room."

"I have, but I haven't searched for presents from a secret lover."

John said, "I really agree with Ronon. She might have kept some knick-knacks or some other teeny-weeny spangles he gave her, if they truly had a relationship..."

"Oh, please! Look at the distasteful expression on his face - there's no chance of Teyla falling in love with him!" Elizabeth made a gesture in the direction of the maliciously smiling Ridge's snapshot. "I don't think we should go through every private detail of her life just to make sure there's no way this guy could be her lover. I know that he wasn't."

"How can you be so sure of it?" Ronon asked with emphasis.

Elizabeth seemed to be a bit ill-at-ease, "Er, I just..."

"So she told you about someone else she was in love with?" John made his guess with a crafty wink of his eyes.

"We shouldn't discuss her most intimate emotions like this," Doctor Weir answered quickly. "I know she didn't fall for Ridge, and that should be enough for both of you."

"Okay, okay," Sheppard accepted her reply, though Ronon seemed still apprehensive, he rested his eyes on Doctor Weir curiously. He was about to ask something, but at the same time the head-sets of Rodney, John and Elizabeth buzzed, and the worried voice of an officer became audible, calling the three persons instantly to the Control Room.

"Uh-oh," McKay knitted his eyebrows. "I suppose we have a problem there. Let's make a bet. I stake on it half of my next salary that it's about the super-hive."

"Okay, my bet is on our Wraith captive," Sheppard gave his hand on it, and McKay pressed it quickly. Doctor Weir sent a disapproving glance at the two of them.

As they rushed into the Control Room, they found the officer standing in front of a computer in a dumbfounded, numb posture. "We have got a message from the jumper sent out to keep an eye on the super-hive," he reported to the three arriving persons. "The super-hive which used to float aimlessly in space, now started off and it's coming exactly in the direction of our city."

"Switch on our hiding system," Elizabeth gave her order at once, keeping her balance. Then a heavy, troubled silence lingered in the room; they all knew that the news might have meant that the Wraiths aboard the super-hive somehow learnt about Atlantis still standing there, and it must have meant that their hiding-technique would prove to be useless.

Suddenly McKay quickened, and he patted Sheppard's shoulder, "Hey, I won half of your next salary."


	17. Chapter 16: Attack

**Chapter 1****6 – Attack**

Doctor Weir, Sheppard and McKay were standing in front of the computer which secured the messages sent from the jumper following the super-hive's movements.

"It's flying exactly in the direction of the city... It's getting closer..." The reports came. "Three minutes and it will reach the distance from which Atlantis will be visible. Two minutes... One minute... It reached the point... The hive has taken a trajectory around the planet... It stopped exactly above Atlantis..."

Doctor Weir stepped to the speakerphone system and switched it on; she called a major up to the Control Room. When the man arrived hurriedly, she gave him the instruction to prepare a group for the probable evacuation of the city through the Stargate.

"Are you sure it's that bad?" John asked her; her only answer was a ruminative nod.

The next report from the puddle jumper arrived. "The super-hive's taking aim at Atlantis with its main weapon... It is preparing for a shoot..."

"Okay, let's everybody calm down, we should think through the situation keeping a cool head," Rodney screamed. In point of fact, everybody else seemed to keep emotional stability, John walked to a monitor to watch the hypothetical area which might get hit by the first missile of the hive, and Doctor Weir turned to the officer by her side. "Switch off the hiding system and change it to our protecting system. I want the shields drawn up before the first shot hits the city."

"What?" McKay protested, flustered. "We can't show the Wraiths that we are here! We mustn't change the hiding system to the protection."

"Rodney, they know about us," she responded sadly. "I don't want people to get hurt."

"No, no, no! That's impossible, they don't know that we are here," the scientist shook his head feverishly. "No one knows. I mean, no Wraith knows..."

"Except the mysterious Corporal Ridge, who can easily prove to be a Wraith," Elizabeth answered. "He walked through our city a plenty of times with routine. He knows very well that we are here."

"Damn that nasty bastard," Rodney muttered desperately.

"He stole Zelenka's jotter with his passwords, he mucked about our sensor system, he abducted Teyla, he manipulated the database of the Daedalus and he used the tarmac of the jumpers for parking his own vehicle, I guess that's how he could carry Teyla away from the city. What the hell is he up to now?" John wondered.

"He wants us all dead," Rodney replied the question.

"Why? Why now? It seems too primitive. He could have given the other Wraiths a heads up on us much earlier," Sheppard murmured in front of himself reflectively, but then he shrugged. "I suppose that we shouldn't care much about Ridge's reasons right now."

"What's your order for me?" McKay looked at Weir, who was busy telling the officer next to her what chief executives he had to call through the speakerphone to the conference room for a quick pow-wow. She turned to the scientist then. "Rodney, you should fetch Radek and as many other scientists as you might need, and you should work on analyzing how much harm the shots of the hive can inflict on our shield."

"Okay, you'll get the answer in two hours," McKay replied obediently, but Weir interrupted, "You have twenty minutes to calculate. Meet me at the conference room with the results." And before Rodney could have objected, she turned away from him. "John, we're going to the conference room right now, and we'll inform the officers about the situation. We'll have to prepare the defense of the city."

"Do you think the Wraiths might be able to get through the shield?" John inquired as they both left the Control Room with quick steps.

"I hope not, but we must consider that they might be."

When they walked across a passage leading to the conference room, the whole building shook from the force of the hit on the shield caused by the super-hive's first shot. The floor was creaking, the walls were juddering, and Elizabeth fell into John Sheppard's arms from the shove of the impact.

"Oh, God, how could the whole city shake from only one hit?" Weir whispered, holding on to John's left arm. "What kind of weapons can they have?"

At the same moment, Colonel Caldwell appeared around the corner, and he caught sight of John hugging Elizabeth protectively. Caldwell threw a gruesome glance at the two of them, but he did not say a thing, he just joined them on their way to the conference room, while Sheppard started to explain to him the whys and wherefores of the alarm. For some reason, Doctor Weir felt embarrassed, and she wished Caldwell had not seen John's arms around her waist.

* * *

Rodney hurried down the stairs, ran across the corridors, and rushed into the conference room. The expression on his face was anxious. The officers sitting around the great table all looked up at him, and Doctor Weir - who was standing next to John by a map of Atlantis where the lieutenant colonel was showing the best posts to locate the canons with the nuclear rockets – signed for him to share what he had ascertained.

"Guys, we have a problem," the scientist announced.

"Actually, we have a lot of problems," Sheppard remarked. "I guess you mean that we have a new problem."

"Don't be funny," Rodney retorted scornfully. "It's deeply serious. I examined the harm done to the shield and the way their missile exploded, and it showed an extraordinary frequency. It caused a greater blow than it should have... It brought on a secondary explosion right in the structure of our shield and..."

"Rodney, what's the point?" John interrupted him. "Did they cause a lot of damage or not?"

"It's not that easy to summarize," the scientist started fuming. "The explosion didn't cause any tangible damage this time, but it left some dangerous aftershocks in the structure of our shield. I had to double the energy-supply of the protecting system to keep the shield in place, and I'm afraid if they continue to shoot with these kinds of rockets, the whole shield system will collapse."

"If they continue? What does that mean?" Doctor Weir inquired. "How long can we stand up against their attacks?"

"I calculated the ten-second-long breaks they need to prepare their next shots, and I counted... er... Don't get mad at me, it's not my fault, but... We have only about three hours before our protection folds up."

"What?" Sheppard stared at the scientist. "Rodney, are you sure? Three hours?"

"Yes," he replied reluctantly. "I've already redirected all the useable energy to the protecting system. And that means that... er..." He turned to Weir with an embarrassed expression on his face. "That means that you have to stop the preparations for the evacuation because we don't have enough energy to open the Stargate."

"We must evacuate the city somehow," Weir protested.

"But we can't! You see, if we take away energy from the shield, their next shot breaks it through, and they will destroy the whole city before anyone could step through the gate."

"What if we keep them busy with the Daedalus? I can attack them with the ship, and that might give some time to Atlantis," Colonel Caldwell suggested.

Rodney snorted disdainfully, "I guess you didn't get what I said about their weapons. Their special bursting charges would break through the shields of the Daedalus in two minutes and explode the ship..."

"Would there be enough time for Atlantis to change the energy-provision between the shield and the Stargate, open it, and send at least a few groups to a safe place?" The colonel asked calmly.

"I guess we could save thirty or forty people that way," the scientist calculated. "It isn't such a bad idea as I thought first. I assume I can be a part of the survivors, I'm too important to stay here to die..."

"Rodney!" Doctor Weir cut in. "Colonel Caldwell's idea is really self-sacrificing and noble, but if we are able to save only forty people that way, I think those have enough space aboard the Daedalus to escape the city with the ship, so I suppose it's better if we keep the ship in safety for the present."

"Oh, okay, that doesn't change the fact that I want a place among the survivors," McKay answered quickly.

Elizabeth pointed at the map of Atlantis next to her. "Let's talk about our chances to save the city," she suggested.

"It will be a very brief conversation," the scientist remarked ironically, "Because we literally have no chance at all. We can't harm the super-hive, we can't stop it, we can't..."

"What about Claire?" Sheppard asked suddenly. "We brought her to Atlantis to help us, we nursed her, Doctor Beckett took care of her... It's time for her to show some _gratitude_." The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. "We might find a way to force her to help us. What if I took away her necklace? Do you think we could gain enough leverage over her? Or shall I bring Ronon and let him _interrogate_ her?"

Ronon, who until this moment was sitting wordlessly at the left side of the table, now lifted his head up, "It would be a pleasure to _have a chat_ with her," he sneered.

Doctor Weir crossed her arms, frowning anxiously. It was obvious that she did not really like the idea. "We didn't heal her just to torture her until she tells us something, supposedly a lie..."

"I tried to question her during a whole week, she didn't say a word," John replied with a shrug. "She seems unwilling to cooperate peacefully, so she hasn't left us any other options."

The door of the conference room opened, and Doctor Beckett rushed in. "I have prepared the infirmary for potential casualties, and I have got the crew ready," he reported to Doctor Weir. "I just came to see how bad our situation is."

"Worse than you could even imagine," Rodney answered bitterly. "Okay, you couldn't really imagine it, because you have no idea about nuclear physics and technology..."

"I don't need the mechanical explanation, just tell me our chances," the doctor looked around in the room questioningly. As he saw the hopeless emptiness on the others' faces, he understood that the reply would be truly disenchanting. "Okay, okay, I see," he hung his head. "They will kill all of us, won't they?"

"A few people can be saved aboard the Daedalus, but that's all," Elizabeth said languidly. "They will destroy the city in a couple of hours and kill everyone who couldn't escape."

Doctor Beckett made a grab at his forehead. "Oh, my God! Is there no way to stop them?"

"Maybe, _someone_ can help us," John said. "So, what's your decision in Claire's case? Can we go with Ronon and make her talk?" he asked Weir. Doctor Beckett came to a halt.

"What?" the doctor asked with astonishment on his face. "What is he talking about?" he turned to Weir too.

"He has suggested that we should _interrogate_ our captive for useful answers," she gave her response unwillingly.

"No, no," Doctor Beckett shook his head with disapproval. "If you threaten her, she will lose all her trust in us, and she will never help us," he said, his voice was persuasive.

"Well, there's no other way. She hasn't been willing to help us so far, she has never replied to any of my questions, now it's time to change methods," John gave his response.

"Over my dead body!" The doctor retorted with a hell-bent expression on his face. "You should believe me, you are unable to achieve a thing with threats and torture. She is a Wraith, you can't break her with mere violence."

"Carson, don't make a fool of yourself. You are just worried about that malignant monster, that's why you want to protect her, but it's pointless," Sheppard shook his head. "She wouldn't do it for you."

"I don't care what she would do for me and what she wouldn't!" The doctor stepped forward. "I only want to make you understand that you can't play her false with brutal force."

Doctor Weir rounded the conference table, and she walked next to Doctor Beckett. "What do you suggest, Carson? What should we do to persuade Claire?"

"I don't think that we can ever persuade her..."

"It's an answer I can't accept," she replied quickly. "You either come up with an alternative, or I'll have to order the interrogation."

"Maybe, I can talk to her about it," Doctor Beckett consented. "I can try to explain her slowly, softly, gradually..."

"Nonsense!" Ronon put the extinguisher on him with a harsh hit on the surface of the conference table. "We really don't have the time."

"Alright, convince her somehow." Elizabeth talked to Carson, neglecting Ronon's chipping in. "You have..." She threw a glimpse at her watch. "You have five minutes."

"Five minutes?" The doctor made a wry face. "I can't persuade her in five minutes! That's impossible."

"Okay, then I'll send soldiers to take away her necklace," she said calmly. "If it's still not enough for her, Ronon will get a free hand to try to make her talk."

"No, no, no," Carson was wringing his hands worryingly. "Alright, I'll try to do what I can, but five minutes are surely not enough."

Doctor Weir stepped in front of him, looking him in the eye with careworn seriousness on her face. "You'll get ten, but that's all. Go, and do your best."

"Ten minutes? It's nothing. Can I have an afternoon? A couple of hours? At least half an hour?" But as he saw Elizabeth's tensed features, he amended instantly, "Oh, okay, ten minutes. Fine. Thank you."

He rushed out of the room as quickly as he could, he did not want to lose valuable moments when he had so little time.


	18. Chapter 17: Question Of Trust

**Chapter 17**** – Question Of Trust**

Doctor Beckett stopped not far from the entrance of the great room containing Claire's cell. He hesitated for a moment, searching for the best words to start the conversation with, then he slowly entered the hall. Claire was sitting in the corner of her cell, reading the volume about chinchillas. She did not look up from the book, and she did not react to his presence either, when Carson inched even closer to her.

"Did you hear the great bang about half an hour ago?" the doctor started the conversation with a casual question, hoping that she would not detect his uneasiness.

"I did." She still fastened her grey, unreadable eyes on the book.

"And the walls are shaking constantly. Do you feel it?" he went on carefully.

"I do."

An embarrassingly cold silence fell onto the room. Doctor Beckett nervously adjusted the band of his watch.

"The super-hive attacked us," he gave the explanation finally, though she did not inquire about the reason. She did not respond, there was no sign of either shock or malice on her face, she just sat there, keeping the volume on her knees, staring at the picture of an albino chinchilla.

"Er," Doctor Beckett cleared his throat. "Your associates will destroy our city and kill everyone."

She turned back to the text of the book, and, with inscrutable emptiness, she ran her eyes on the lines of characters.

"So... so... we could really do with some help..." The doctor started stammering, embarrassed by her behavior. "Some help... to... to do something... to stop this somehow... to..." He fell silent because he began to surmise how insincere the calmness on her face was.

"Why don't you say a thing?" Carson asked timidly, clearing his throat again. "You surely have an opinion..."

The Wraith continued to mime reading the book, she even put her forefinger to a long sentence about the drinking-troughs appropriate for rodents, and she followed the words with her blackish nail.

"I... I guess you found out that I'd come to ask for your help," the doctor faltered out. "I know that you are... er... a Wraith... but..."

Suddenly, Claire sprang up from the floor, and she threw her book against the wall of her cell with such force that it split into two. Paper pages were floating in the air with silent rustling. The raven-like blackness of her hair made a great contrast with her pale, greenish skin, as the blue light of the neon lamp fell on her features.

"You told me that we wouldn't talk about hives and Wraith technology," she murmured in front of herself in a strikingly quiet, even painful tone of voice. Carson understood now what the cause of her strange reactions was.

"I'm sorry, my child, I'm so sorry," the doctor on the other side of the wall of the cell mumbled shamefacedly. "I really wanted to keep my promise, but things turned so bad..."

"You lied to me," she hissed. An emerald green vein on the back of her hand started pulsating as she bent her fingers forcefully. "I should have known better..."

"No!" Carson stepped closer to her, now there was only the electric shield separating them from each other. "I meant to keep my words, and now I just want to prevent you from suffering. My friends are planning to hurt you, if you don't help."

"I'm sure you don't give a damn about my comfort, so spare me your see-through lies!" she spat the words bitterly. "Don't pretend that you are surprised at this turn of events, you knew very well that we would come to this. You shouldn't have made me believe that you truly cared for me. You've just been waiting for the opportunity when I might let out useful information!"

"That's not true. I'm well disposed towards you, and I trust in you. I can prove it."

Claire exhaled sharply, her nostrils were trembling. "I don't believe you; you are just poisoning me with your insidious lies. I won't listen to you anymore. I'm not afraid of the abject ways of your friends to hurt me, there's no such pain that could make me talk. Go, and tell them that they can come and do to me whatever they want. They are pathetic, and you are pathetic as well with your smarmy efforts to outwit me. I despise all of you equally... Go!"

"I can prove that I'm well disposed towards you and I trust in you," the doctor repeated with more confidence, totally ignoring her answer.

"No, you can't."

"Yes, I can."

"Damn it." She turned on her heel, now she was facing the wall of the room, not the doctor anymore. "Go away! I don't want you to talk to me. Get out of here!"

Doctor Beckett stepped to the lock panel of Claire's cell, and he pressed a combination of buttons, making the protective shield of the cell open up. The two soldiers standing guard at the entrance of the hall lifted their weapons and pointed them worryingly in the direction of the Wraith.

"Dare not shoot," The doctor told the guards serenely, "I know what I'm doing."

He walked into the cell and stopped beside her. Claire looked at him in astonishment. She was motionless for a while, then suddenly she gripped him by the neck of his medical robe, and she pushed him against the wall with such force that the dash echoed in the room.

"Can we shoot her down now?" One of the guards asked Beckett with a slightly trembling voice, but the doctor lifted up his right hand to sign them not to do anything, though he could not say a word, he struggled for breath from the pain of the collision. Claire stood in front him, her eyes burnt with furious, wild glitter.

"I could kill you before they even blink," she gritted her teeth. "I could kill you right now."

"Oh, you won't kill me," he answered with a faint smile.

"Do you have an idea how hungry I am?"

"You won't feed on me either."

The Wraith's eyes opened wide. "You shouldn't be so sure," she growled.

"Yeah, I am. More than sure."

"Why?"

"Because we are friends, and friends don't hurt each other." He reached out for her and took her cold, slippery hands. "You see? I trust in you."

She inclined her head to look at his fingers clenching softly on her cool, greenish palms.

"Do you believe me now?" he asked silently.

She just glared at his hands wordlessly. Moments passed, then long minutes, and she did not stir. Carson started to lack confidence more and more as he realized the reason of her standstill: even Claire herself had no idea what she would do. What she should do... And that meant that any minute she might decide to seize him and drain all the life out of him. The doctor felt the coldness of the fear crawl in his veins and make his flesh creep. His fingers trembled around hers. He could clearly imagine the horrors of the Wraith's nails tearing up the skin on his chest and rupturing the thoracic muscle while she was stealing away the life from him...

He forced himself to stop thinking of it. He knew that he had to trust her, he had no other choice, and neither did she. She had to see that he came to help her... She had to feel it... At least, he hoped that she was able to assume it.

He wished his fingers stopped shaking because it made his doubts too obvious. He wished he could be cool, pretending that he had no queries, that he pinned his faith on her, but he did not manage to fake it. As time passed, his fears just got worse.

Finally, she heaved a deep sigh.

"If I help you destroy the super-hive, will you let me free with my necklace?" she whispered, still keeping her gaze on his hands wrapped around hers.

"I promise you we will."

"I believe you." She looked him in the eye now. "You can tell your leader that I will help you, but I'll need to get in touch with the tribe aboard the super-hive, I'll have to join their lines of communication. You must trust me, I just need it to find the weakest link in the system of their hive."

"Erm," Carson ducked. "I'm pretty sure that Doctor Weir won't be glad to hear it, I don't think she will allow us to try it."

"You need to convince her."

He rolled his eyes; he started to get tired of being the mediator. "Okay, okay, I'll do my best," he said resignedly.

* * *

"Elizabeth, we wouldn't risk a thing," Carson told Weir emphatically. They were standing in her office next to her desk. "The Wraiths aboard the super-hive already know about us, she can't give away any important information."

"Why does she want to communicate with them, then?" Elizabeth asked with suspicion in her voice. "Maybe she got to know the coordinates of the Earth somehow."

"No, no, no. She really wants to help us."

"How do you know?"

"I know _her_, she decided to help us. I know it for sure."

"Would you trust her with anything in the whole universe?"

The doctor's response was calm, "I would."

Doctor Weir nodded slowly, "Go, then. Escort her out of her cell to a place where she can get in touch with her associates, but be careful, take at least four soldiers with you, and don't forget about her shackles. Oh, and be quick before it comes to the knowledge of John, Ronon or Colonel Caldwell what you are planning to do, for I don't feel like spending the remaining few hours of my life arguing with them because of you and your Claire."

"Thank you for trusting me," the doctor told her happily, and he made a gesture as if he were about to hug her, but Weir lifted up her hands to stop him. "Go, and do it quickly." And then she added with a sad smile, "You don't need to thank me for it."

* * *

Carson arrived at Claire's cell running, out of breath. The four armed soldiers he chose to follow him were waiting in the background.

"How could you convince your leader?" Claire asked wonderingly, when she saw the shackles in the hands of one of the cadets.

"I'm not sure whether I really convinced her..."

"But she let you escort me out of my cell, didn't she?

"Yes, though I think she still has fears that you will let us down."

"Why did she let me go out of here, then?" Claire asked at a loss to understand.

"She takes the risk of my decision."

The Wraith stood there tongue-tied for a few moments, and then she remarked silently, "You were right when we were talking at the beginning of my captivity - you humans are really not simple. You are the weirdest creatures of the Galaxy."

* * *

"We need to take those stairs up to the roof of the building-complex," the Wraith directed the soldiers by her side.

"Claire, we've been circling round in the city for ten minutes now," Doctor Beckett warned her.

"If you opened the shield, I could freely communicate with my folk," she delivered her riposte coldly, "But I have an intense suspicion that this possibility would not please you either. So we need to search for the proper point where I can join the lines of their communication, and it's not that easy, believe me."

"Okay, okay," the doctor answered with resignation. "Just keep it in mind that not all of my friends would be overjoyed if they got to know our plan..."

"Alright, I'm trying to find the place as quickly as possible."

When they reached the top of the stairs, and they walked out on the flat, shiny roof of the building, she stopped. She took in the sight of the purple rings of flames dancing on the shield above the city as the shots of the super-hive hit the surface. The violet-colored whirls mixed with the silvery glitter of the arch of the protecting system.

"It looks wonderful," Carson whispered, looking up at the sky as well.

"It's a good place for me to try to capture their communication," Claire said dispassionately.

"Okay. Try it, please, right now."

"Will you hold my hand?" she asked suddenly. Doctor Beckett looked at her astonished at her request. "It's a very difficult thing for me to communicate with my folk without letting them know my own position and my own thoughts. You can support me by holding my hands," she explained without any emotions in her voice. Carson smiled and reached out for her cold fingers.

She raised her head, closing her eyes. First, her features froze, and she stood there motionless, but after a while he could see the tics contorting her face, and her chained hands kept the doctor's soft fingers stronger and stronger, it was almost painful. Carson pressed her palms encouragingly. He hoped that the whole procedure with the secret communication did not cause her pain, though the amorphous snarl appearing on her face showed him that it could not be the most pleasant experience for her.

Abruptly, her expression loosened, she opened her eyes, and she turned to the doctor.

"Alright," she said hurriedly, "I made up a plan how you could destroy that hive, but it won't be easy..."


	19. Chapter 18: Preparations

**Chapter 18**** – Preparations**

Doctor Weir was on her way to the cell of the Wraith to search for Doctor Beckett in order to ask him if Claire had succeeded in retrieving data of any vulnerable part in the system of the super-hive. She was crossing the halls where the private quarters were located, when she noticed something strange. She came to a halt as she realized that the door leading to her private dwelling quarters was wide open. She took a few watchful steps and peeped in. She saw a young cadet wearing the uniform of the crew of the Daedalus standing next to her drawers and stuffing some of her clothes into a suitcase.

"What are you doing here?" she asked surprised.

The soldier looked up from his work. "Colonel Caldwell gave me the order to pack a few necessary things for everyone who will escape on the Daedalus," he informed her.

"I still don't get why you are here," she answered with sober immobility. "As far as I know I didn't apply for a place aboard the ship."

"The colonel added you to the list of persons who will come with us," the cadet gave the explanation.

Her eyelashes fluttered slightly, which was the only sign of her emotional reaction.

"Oh, please, put that down." She stepped to the soldier and pulled her jacket out of his grip, "And give me that list."

The cadet obediently slipped his fingers into his pocket and handed a piece of paper to her. Elizabeth picked up a pen from her night-table, and she lined her own name through on the top of the list.

"Find someone else for my place," she said to him quietly. The soldier stood in front of her agape, dumbfounded from her order.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked impatiently, pressing the list back into his palm. "Don't you have a task to complete? Pack the things for the group of the survivors as the colonel told you. You can leave my room now."

"Colonel Caldwell forbade me to change the list..." the cadet muttered.

"It wasn't you, it was me. I have the right to decide if I want to stay here or leave."

"Er, yes, Ma'am, as you wish." The cadet pushed the list back into his pocket, and he walked out of the room with marvel on his face. As he reached an empty corridor, he quickly added one of his Atlantisian pals' name to the list to replace her.

* * *

Rodney paced up and down in front of the screen with the counter showing how much time they still had until the protecting system would collapse. The huge, red numbers formed 02:45:03.

"Have you successfully installed the counter?" John stepped into the room with the question.

"Yes," McKay responded, "We have less than three hours."

"It's sad that we can't even try a thing to save the city," John wondered, walking next to the scientist. "Are you sure you don't have something up in your sleeve?"

"I'm sure," Rodney grunted huffily, but then he saw that Sheppard did not really mean what he said, he was just trying to cover up his disappointment over the loss of their beloved city with jokes. "Have you ever wondered what you would do if we returned to Earth?" the scientist inquired in much friendlier manner.

"Of course I thought of it sometimes, but I didn't imagine I'd have to return because of something like this," John replied quietly.

Rodney had never seen him this melancholy before, and he felt a sudden desire to hug him, but he quickly forced himself to overcome this stupid thought. He was still a bit angry because of the night when John was unwilling to share the reason for his former weird behavior, and he still had doubts if Sheppard really considered him as a friend, but at a moment like this, he could not think of anything else but consoling him somehow.

"That's an unhealthy circumstance," he thought to himself, reprimanding himself for feeling this way. "It's definitely unhealthy to care about the feelings of anyone else except me, myself! You're better off without this newfound, silly desire for sociability, it just makes everything so complicated and... fishy."

He patted John's shoulder, trying to perform it as a most natural gesture, but it turned out to be a miserable motion instead, since after finishing the quick tap, he pulled back his hand with such awkwardness that he hit Sheppard's neck with it.

"Oops, sorry, sorry," he said quickly.

John smiled at him, and it made the situation even more uncomfortable for Rodney. He was not sure if that smile was a scornful or a friendly one.

"We shouldn't stand here and talk about Earth," the scientist tried to switch back his thoughts to their former topic. "We'll have the occasion to do so aboard the Daedalus. I need to check the protective system once more; maybe I can find a way to postpone the time of the crash."

"Okay, I'll let you do your job," John said, but he stayed there next to McKay, and oddly it made the scientist's heartbeat race.

"Don't you have something to do?" Rodney asked; his voice was higher than usual. He wished the question made Sheppard go away.

"Not really," the soldier replied instantly. McKay realized that the distance between the two of them somehow diminished to only a few inches.

"I want you to go away, otherwise I can't fully concentrate on my job," Rodney admitted. He saw that his sentence hurt the other man. John turned away, and he left the room without a word.

"Oh, no," the scientist buried his face into his palms. "I'll need to go after him with apologies again..."

* * *

After she had the brief conversation with the cadet from the Daedalus in her private quarters, Doctor Weir felt lonely and exhausted. She found herself in a blank, hopeless state of mind, for she was sure that if Claire had had a plan to stop the hive, Carson would have already informed her, so she changed her mind and did not go to the cell of the Wraith, she went back to her office instead. She only wanted to stay alone for a few minutes, but she could not enjoy the silence of the room lost in her thoughts because Colonel Caldwell entered her office in an indignant hurry. He rushed into the room at such speed that it made Elizabeth jump. He threw in front of her the list on which she had previously crossed her name off.

"What's this?" he asked furiously. She wondered if she had ever seen him showing his anger this plainly before.

She picked up the paper from her desk, and she gave a calm look at it. "It's the list of the people who will escape aboard the Daedalus," she answered readily.

"I know that," he growled, "But why the hell have you lined your own name through?"

"Because I'll stay here."

"What?"

"You see, I belong here, to the city," she explained with a joyless smile. "I can't really imagine my life without Atlantis anymore. It's better for me to stay here until the end."

"I can't accept that," Caldwell replied in a stiltedly official tone. "I need to keep the interests of the Stargate Command in mind and you are an important person for them, so you must come back with us to Earth."

Weir started rolling the list between her fingers absent-mindedly.

"So all this is just about the interests of the Stargate Command?" she asked silently.

Caldwell scowled. "What do you want to hear? Shall I talk about my private opinion?"

"Oh, no, no, you don't need to," she said quickly, though it was obvious that her former question had meant it, but now she felt unable to cope with his probable answer. She was afraid that he would tell her that he only wanted her to escape the city for official reasons, otherwise it would be quite alright for him if she died here, and she did not want to hear this. It was still better only suspecting it than knowing it for sure. "Actually, you cannot say anything in the whole universe that could change my mind," she attempted to stop the conversation. She hoped that it would make him leave, but it did not.

Caldwell took a slow breath to regain his self-possession. "I have no idea why you believe that it's your privilege to decide if you stay here or come with us."

"It's my life. I have the right to do so."

"I see that I need to warn you that I don't care about your weak reasons like your pathological affection for the city; I only take rational arguments into consideration, so you have to come with us, because the Stargate Command needs your talents."

"You can't really mean that I'm obliged to escape the city though I don't want to, just because once I was an important diplomat on Earth!" Doctor Weir let the paper-list fall from her hands down on her desk. "In point of fact, there are not many people waiting for me there. It's better if you save someone who has plenty of relatives on Earth..."

"I've told you that I was not interested in these kinds of personal reasons. Pack your things up and get ready for the journey."

Elizabeth stood up from her chair and leaned her hands against the side of her desk, bending forward. "You can choose between two options. You either leave my office right now or I call soldiers to get you out of here with brute force!"

Caldwell stared in her face surprised from her blunt, undiplomatic reaction, but he did not turn to leave. Weir was dumbfounded by the fact that he still did not retreat, though he usually gave in when he saw that she was too determined to convince.

"I won't change my mind," she added.

"Me neither," he replied firmly. "If it's necessary, I'll order Hermiod to teleport you aboard the Daedalus with the help of the Asgardian beam-technology against your will!"

She started to thrum with the tip of her fingers on the cold surface of her desk, and she wondered if she should truly call soldiers to escort the colonel out, but she realized the truth in his words, and she saw that he would end up by abducting her, if she was unable to persuade him about her decision, so she went on. "It's about my life," she tried to reason again. "I have the ability to deliberate upon the circumstances and to make the proper..."

She got stuck in the middle of her sentence because the door behind Caldwell opened, and Doctor Beckett marched in with bright hope on his face. "Elizabeth, Claire made up a plan for us to destroy the super-hive," the doctor announced gleefully. "She explained it to me, and it sounded really promising!"

* * *

Teyla was on her hunkers in the corner of her cell, and she was listening to the monotonous bubbling of the liquid in the cauldrons in her bathroom. She began to hate that sound more and more as she spent the greatest part of her days sitting and hearing it. Her head got filled with the invariable gurgle and the meat-colored redness of the walls. She tried a million ways to escape, but all proved to be inefficient. Michael rarely gave her food lately, and he started to pay less and less attention to her. Whether he spent his time brewing mischief or he was occupied with Wraith obligations, she was not sure; the only thing she knew was that she wanted to leave the damned cell and to protect her friends from Michael's maniac revenge.

A soft sound made her aware of her surroundings. She lifted her head up from her knees, and she saw the half-Wraith standing out in the corridor. Michael stepped to the entrance of her cell, but he did not walk in.

"I have wonderful news for you," he whispered with an evil smile on his face.

"Oh, no..." She felt her heart skip a beat. "What have you done?"

"Me? Nothing," he answered with an ironic shrug. "I did nothing."

"Why are you so happy, then?" she asked anxiously.

"My plan works wonderfully!" He squared his shoulders as he went on, "Everything goes the way I want it. Everything. My plan is perfect. You'll get the head of your friends soon..."

"What?" she turned to him taken aback. "No, no, Michael, please... You don't really mean it..."

"Yes, I do. And she helps me a lot to achieve it..."

"She?" Teyla raised her eyebrows. "Who are you talking about?"

Michael clapped his hands with insane enthusiasm. "She is a Wraith... inside your beloved Atlantis!"

Teyla felt the blood freeze in her veins. "No. That's impossible."

"Your poor, silly friends were so desperate to find you that they even took a Wraith into the core of their city, and she happens to be one of my servants... I sent her to hunt some of your friends down, but she failed. I was angry and disappointed, but now I see the great chance in the turn of the occurrences. She helps me more by being their captive!"

"Michael, please, stop this," Teyla crawled to the rails on her knees. "I'll do anything, anything you want, but leave my friends in peace. Please, don't hurt them. Please, stop it. Please..."

"It's really entertaining to see you begging," he remarked scornfully, "But I have to prepare everything for your friends, so I'm leaving now..."

"No!" she hit the rails. "Stay with me, leave my friends alone. I promise you I'll do anything you want."

"It's too late." He took a step backwards, increasing the distance between the cell and himself.

"Michael, please, please! I know you have goodness in the most secret corner of your heart, I know that you are not a cruel monster, I know that you are better than what you show... I know it..."

The Wraith lifted up his hand, touching his lower lip with his forefinger to mime pensiveness tauntingly, and then he replied with a wintry smile, "There you are mistaken."


	20. Chapter 19: The Plan

**Chapter ****19 – The Plan**

They were sitting around the conference table, John, Rodney, Ronon, Doctor Weir and Colonel Caldwell, and they were all turning in the direction of the door, where Claire was walking in; her chains were jingling with every step she took. Doctor Beckett stood beside her encouragingly. The Wraith stopped not far from the table, and she lifted her head up proudly and contemptuously.

"Please, would you tell your plan to my friends as well?" Doctor Beckett asked her timidly.

Claire made a loathsome grimace, but then she composed her features and obeyed.

"First, I considered the circumstance that the super-hive is only destructible from the inside." The Wraith started to explain. "From the outside the hive is too strong for you weak humans and for your poor technology..."

"Go on without attributes," Weir interrupted because she saw the rage growing on Ronon's face, and she was afraid that the whole discussion might end up in pointless arguing if Claire did not moderate her words.

The Wraith snorted disdainfully, and then she went on with her train of thought. "Your only chance to harm the hive is to get inside. The second fact is that you'll need to find a way to get aboard the super-hive which seems almost impossible; their jamming codes block any kind of transportation. You cannot encounter the tarmac of their Darts either, since there is a protecting system there to filter any human life form."

"So we can't get aboard, and that's all," Ronon grunted. "Was it your wonderful plan?"

Claire turned slowly in his direction. "A Runner," she hissed, looking him up and down with a malicious smile. Ronon was about to jump from his chair, but Sheppard held him back. Doctor Beckett put his right hand gently on Claire's arm, signing her to stop provoking his friends.

"So back to my plan," she said coldly, "which is truly wonderful if we take the fact into consideration that you all were unable to do a single thing against that hive..."

"Stop bragging you bloody monster," Ronon roared. "You were not this self-confident in the desert when you were begging us to save your wretched life!"

Claire bit her dark, pouting lower lip.

"Don't pay attention to him," Carson whispered into her ear, "Please, just go on with your plan."

Claire nodded reluctantly, but she stayed silent for a minute. "There is a way to get aboard the super-hive," she said finally. "You need to transport a human aboard the hive with my folk's consent. If they switch off their jamming codes at the same time you are sending the human bait there, you can use the opportunity to transport a scientist aboard as well to a place where he can break into the system of the hive unnoticed. I'll help you create a virus program which will activate the self-destructive function of the hive if you attach it to their system, and it will explode their ship in an hour."

She finished talking. Her expression remained unreadable; it would have been impossible to tell what she was thinking of or what she felt, if she had any kind of feelings at all.

"Rodney?" Doctor Weir turned to the scientist beside her. "What's your opinion?"

"Uhmm... It sounded... okay," McKay admitted. "Though her plan is a bit too simple to be easily carried out..."

"My plan is not simple," the Wraith snapped. "It's the only way to destruct that hive."

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair. "Okay. Rodney, please, escort our captive to the lab, and you should create the virus with the other scientists as soon as possible. Claire, are you ready to start helping with it?" she inquired thoughtfully.

"I am," the Wraith answered calmly.

"Alright, you two should go then," Weir ordered. "In the meantime, we'll work out the other details of the plan."

As McKay and Claire left, Doctor Beckett asked worryingly. "Will we send someone as a sacrifice there? I mean as bait to help the technician get aboard..."

"I think we should simply draw which citizen of Atlantis should be sent there for lunch to the Wraith Queen," Ronon suggested sarcastically.

"No, no, I'd never order anything like that," Weir protested. "It would be very suspicious to the Wraiths as well, if we simply sent a human to die there."

"What else can we do?" John asked.

"I'll send them a message, and I'll ask them to let me get transported aboard their hive for negotiation," Elizabeth said with confidence.

"They don't have any reasons to accept it. They have a huge advantage compared to our pathetically dilapidated shield, they would never sit down with you to negotiate," John shook his head.

"Yes, they will, if I offer them the coordinates of the Earth."

Everybody stared at her, shocked at her statement.

"Naturally, it would be a lie," she added, "But the Wraiths want to know so desperately where the Earth is that I'm sure they will accept it and they will let me in, even if they have doubts about my offer."

"If they found out about your lie, they would kill you," John said apprehensively.

"Maybe. Or maybe I'll find a way to escape from the hive before they realize my untruth," she said without much conviction, but she tried to disguise it, she forced a cheering smile on her face. "Let's talk about the other part of the plan, about the scientist to be transported aboard. Do you think Rodney would accept the role?"

"He won't be glad," Sheppard murmured, "But I think I can persuade him. He is the best, and nobody else can be entrusted with such an important task."

"He needs a few soldiers to join him and protect him," Elizabeth added reflectively.

"We'll go with him," John made a gesture in the direction of Ronon and himself. "We'd be there to protect him, if the Wraiths detected his presence and tried to stop him."

"It might end up as a suicidal mission," Doctor Beckett mumbled in the background, "If you can't escape from the hive before it explodes..."

"It's worth trying." John got up from his chair, and so did Ronon. "We'll talk to Rodney about it," Sheppard promised, and he headed for the door. "I think he'll understand."

They left, and Doctor Beckett wanted to follow them too, but Elizabeth went to him.

"Carson, you know Claire... What have you seen on her face?" she asked the doctor, whispering. "Did she tell us the truth? Is her plan really worth trying?"

Doctor Beckett took her hand and gave it a heartening pat. "I believe her," he said. "I can't tell you for sure what she had on her mind, but I do believe in her. She merits our trust, I know."

"I hope you are right about her," Weir beckoned. "Now go, and stay beside her. Take care that she feels alright here and she won't turn against us in the last minute."

The doctor rushed out of the conference room ardently, he seemed happy that he could spend time with his protégé. Colonel Caldwell, who remained silent during the discussion of the plan, now stepped next to Weir. "I need to talk to you," he told her.

"If you want to convince me that it's a foolish thing to follow a Wraith's advice, you'd better save your breath," she answered sullenly.

"I want to join you and go with you to the Wraiths aboard the super-hive to negotiate with them."

"What?" she came to a halt, astonished.

"I see that you are unable to deal with the sly mendacity of the Wraiths, it would not be the first time that you are deluded with their machinations..."

Doctor Weir's lips slightly trembled with the anger rising in her, but she did not show it, she gave her response quietly. "I don't need a guardian who keeps an eye on me, I won't mess up anything."

"Yes, you need. I don't want you to make another foolish decision. I will interfere, if you are about to trust those monsters..."

"I will be there only as bait to help Rodney, Ronon and John to get aboard the hive. You can feel reassured; I won't need to make any decisions. The whole negotiation will be just a cover-up."

"I know. However, you may need a soldier to stand by. I'm gonna join you, and you can't do anything to stop me."

"No, you won't come!" Her voice was as determined as his. "I'll go alone. If anything fares ill, it's better if it's only me there to face the Wraiths' revenge, I don't want anyone else to risk..."

He interrupted dryly, "If anything fares ill, it's all the same if I'm with you aboard the super-hive or aboard the Daedalus or here in Atlantis, the Wraiths will kill me as they will everybody else."

"No. Aboard the Daedalus you'll have the chance to escape from the fury of the Wraiths, so I'm ordering you to go to your ship right now and to prepare everything for the departure. Speaking for myself, this discussion is over. Please, go!"

Caldwell did not obey; he remained there, facing her with the solidity of the immovable resolution in his eyes. "I'll go with you," he said sharply. "It's not a question or an offer, it's my final decision, and I want you to be observant of it."

"No, you won't come with me. It would be useless to risk your life..."

"I will."

"I said: No!"

"Hey, what's going on here?" They heard from the entrance of the office, and as they turned in the direction of the voice, they could see Sheppard coming back into the room. "Is there no question you two are able to discuss without jarring?"

"John!" Elizabeth beckoned her left hand to stop the soldier at the door. "It's a private discussion. Will you, please, wait outside?"

"We don't have the time, sorry," Sheppard walked in. "I just wanted to suggest that you should take one or two soldiers with you on your trip to the heart of the super-hive, you might need their help. When we are ready with setting up the self-destructive virus, we'll need to disappear from the hive as soon as possible, before they become aware of it. If you have armed men by your side, we'll have more chance to leave in time before they puzzle out our plan."

Caldwell threw a triumphant glance at Weir. "So I'll join you," he concluded.

"Would you? That's cool," John snapped his fingers. "I thought it would not be easy to find someone who voluntarily joins us, but it's really nice that you..."

"John, I told you to wait outside," Elizabeth hissed at Sheppard, but she had to see that it was too late. "The colonel supposedly misunderstood what you said, and he thought that you meant officers, but you didn't, so he won't come with me, I'll take a cadet," she added.

"No, no, Colonel Caldwell is perfect for the role. He already knows the entire plan, we don't need to spend valuable minutes teaching him the details," John stated. "I think you should accept his offer."

"Oh, I can explain the plan in two minutes to any of our cadets. Why should we risk an officer's life?" Weir kept on protesting against the idea.

"You have to go to the Control Room now and to send the message to the Wraiths about the request for negotiation," Caldwell retorted. "You really don't have the time to explain plans."

"Yes, I do! Your job is to prepare the flight of the Daedalus, you should mind your own business, and not interfere in my tasks."

"This is my task as well because I'll join you...

"No, you won't!"

John shook his head, and he decided to leave. As he arrived at the lab, he found Rodney despairingly wringing his hands.

"Why me?" The scientist asked loud, enraged. "Why does it always have to be me? Why can't it be anybody else?"

"Rodney, it's not inevitably a suicidal mission," John told him, trying to give him some comfort with his remark.

"Hah, how the hell can you believe that I will buy it?" McKay snorted. "Setting up a self-destructive virus in the middle of a hive full of hungry Wraiths is _inevitably_ a suicidal mission!"

"Well, it's true that we will take some risk, but don't give up hope this soon, we've already been in worse situations and we've pulled through..."

"Worse situations? Just name one!"

Sheppard cleared his throat. "Erm, I can't recall any right now, but naturally we have had much worse than this... I suppose you are just a bit too pessimistic about our chances."

"Of course I am. It's a long shot."

"I don't see why you are dramatizing our case. Ronon and I will be there to help you..."

Rodney turned away from him, "Please, stop trying to fool me. We're unquestionably gonna die aboard that hive to save the city!"


	21. Chapter 20: Start

**Chapter ****20 – Start**

"Are you sure it's the perfect place for us to land aboard the super-hive?" Rodney asked Claire suspiciously, as he saw which spot she pointed at on the hypothetical map of the hive she designed in ten minutes with the help of an Atlantisian computer.

"If you don't believe me, try to solve your problems alone," she snarled at him.

"Hey, don't come at each other," Doctor Beckett warned the two of them. "We have so little time..."

"When I promised you that I would help, it wasn't in the deal that I'd have to endure the pugnacity of your primitive friends," Claire growled, but she turned back to her work obediently.

"Did you hear that?" Rodney looked glum. "She called me primitive!"

Carson rolled his eyes. "Claire, please, try to understand my friends, they risk their lives by following your plan..."

"So what?" She typed a line of characters into the virus program she was editing. "Haven't they ever risked their lives?"

"Not on a Wraith's advice."

"Just tell him to shut up, and everything's going to be alright," she murmured in front of her, while she added another combination of numbers to the program.

"I can't work with this creature any longer!" Rodney slammed his palmtop on his desk, and he turned to leave.

Doctor Beckett looked at Sheppard with a distressed grimace, but the soldier did not seem to be very eager to help, so the doctor had to rush after McKay and held him back.

"Just ten more minutes," he begged him. "She's almost done with the program and you need to stand beside her because you are the only one who is able to check her work."

It was at least the sixth time that he had to mediate between the Wraith and McKay, and with each time the conflict became more and more serious. "Why can't you two just simply work in silence?" he asked, exhausted from his attempts to straighten up things.

"He questioned the sense of my suggestion," Claire replied.

"She scoffed at me!" Rodney lamented.

"I think I'd better take a walk and check whether Elizabeth managed to get the Wraiths' permission for the negotiation," John suggested, and he was quickly backing in the direction of the exit of the lab before Doctor Beckett could have gotten him involved in his efforts to make peace between Claire and Rodney. He grabbed a cup of coffee on his way to Weir's office, but as soon as he reached his destination, the sight that greeted him gave him the idea that he should have gone back to Carson, trying to help him with McKay and the Wraith. He saw Caldwell and Weir still arguing of no avail in the office as he had left them half an hour before. He took a deep breath, and he walked into the room, interrupting their quarrel.

"Are you two still debating about the question who should go with Elizabeth to negotiate with the Wraiths?" he asked with disbelief. "Are you sure it's the right thing to spend your time with?"

Only when they heard his remark, did Weir and Caldwell seem to realize how much time they had wasted on arguing.

"Okay, so we should cut things short," the colonel gave Sheppard a nod, and then he added, looking at Weir again, "If you deny my offer to escort you, I'll forbid Hermiod to transport you and your friends aboard the hive. The Asgard has to obey my orders, so you can't carry out your plan, if you don't let me join you..."

"What?" Elizabeth gasped. "You are trying to blackmail me?"

"Yes, I am," he replied unabashedly.

"Okay, okay, so the colonel will escort you," John concluded, lifting up his hand by way of warning, when she was about to give an indignant response. "We don't have the time to question his decision."

"It's nonsense," she kept on fretting. "I don't see why we should risk an officer's life in a situation like this. It's Colonel Caldwell's sick idea to make me feel even worse about the fact that I am following a Wraith's plan, I know..."

"Anyhow, you should accept my request, and come with me to the Control Room now to get in touch with the Wraiths aboard the hive," Caldwell intervened.

Weir whipped around and left the room without saying anything else.

"Uh, wow, I've never seen her angry like this before," Sheppard told Caldwell with a commiserating look on his face, while they were following her out.

* * *

Rodney read the stock of the virus program Claire had created. "This is almost as good as if it had been made by me," he announced with a grin.

"It was an enormous compliment," Doctor Beckett explained to Claire, who was standing beside him with unyielding tenseness on her face.

"When I have finished here, I want to go back to my cell," she said with empty stoniness.

"Well, I can escort you there right now, if that's what you want." The doctor took her chained left arm by the elbow, and he led her out of the lab.

"Finally, this monster is out of here," McKay heaved a sigh of relief. "The air freezes around her... I really don't like the look in her eyes."

* * *

A sergeant dialed the channel of the communication system of the super-hive for the fourth time, and Weir repeated her message that she wanted to talk to the leader of the Wraith community as soon as possible.

"I guess they won't reply," she said when this new call of hers was not answered again; she felt a bit disappointed. "Okay, we should make up another plan to..."

Suddenly, the speakerphone of the Atlantisian communication system creaked, and with loud whizz, the picture of a red-haired, pale Wraith queen appeared from the darkness on the monitor. She was sitting on a mold-colored piece of furniture, similar to a human throne. The black shadows of the amorphous, organic tissue of the hall surrounded her.

Weir cleared her throat. "Hello there," she said vaguely.

"What do you want to tell me, human?" the queen asked with arrogance in her voice.

"I have an offer to you," Elizabeth got stuck for a minute at the beginning of her message because Caldwell obtruded himself next to her, forcing her to make him enough space to stand in front of the monitor as well. Reluctantly, she let him do so, though she did not seem particularly pleased with the fact that he had come closer. "Atlantis means the most important headquarters to us, and I'm willing to offer you anything you find valuable enough, if you let our city stand, and you withdraw your forces," Doctor Weir went on.

The Wraith queen made an ugly face in disgust. "You can offer nothing to me, you pathetic human. We'll destroy your city and hunt down all your citizens. It will be a great feast for my legion."

"Oh, so you are not interested in an exchange? If you let Atlantis unharmed, I'd give you the coordinates of a densely populated planet," Elizabeth said with determination.

"I don't care," the queen replied apathetically. Suddenly she looked to the left with a questioning glimpse, and when she turned back, the expression on her face was much more interested than before. "Which planet?" she inquired.

"The Earth." Weir tried to put as much firmness as she just could into her voice.

Eager, hungry sparkles appeared in the grayish, inhuman eyes of the queen. "That's something worth considering." She leaned back in her throne, and she turned to her left again. She was observing something for a while, and then she asked Weir, "How do you want to work out the exchange?"

"To show my trust and goodwill to you, I offer my visit aboard your hive, and there we can talk about the details of the process." Elizabeth realized only at this moment that at some time she nervously took Caldwell's hand next to her, and she was still keeping it cramped with her fingers stiffly - she did it totally unwittingly. She hastily let him free, and she tried to pretend that nothing had happened; she concentrated on the Wraith queen's face in front of her on the monitor.

"Your offer is really... adventurous," the queen gave her response leisurely. "You have the nerve, well... let it be. You can get transported aboard my hive in half an hour. Alone."

"Alright, I'll be there," she promised, but Caldwell interrupted her. "That's out of the question," he told the queen sharply. "She won't go alone; I'll escort her aboard your hive."

To Weir's greatest disappointment, the Wraith queen nodded calmly, "You can join her, but no one else. I'll soon give you the exact time when you can come." She cut off the communication, and her picture disappeared from the screen.

"Colonel, have you seen it?" Doctor Weir whispered to Caldwell by her side.

"Seen what?"

"Someone was there, in the background. I saw someone moving in the shadow. And the queen turned her eyes strikingly often to the left."

"Why should any Wraith hide from our glance?" Caldwell asked wonderingly.

"Because we knew him or her?" she guessed.

"We don't know any Wraith personally. Any Wraith that is still alive..."

"Maybe it was a human, not a Wraith."

"It's truly weird," John remarked, stepping next to both of them, "But I don't think we have enough information to find it out."

"Shall we ask Claire about it?" Elizabeth brought the idea up.

"I think we had enough of that Wraith's subtle lies," Caldwell said brusquely.

"Do you really think she lies to us?" Weir asked.

"Of course she does. She is a Wraith."

"Alright, I'll order Rodney to secretly change the coordinates Claire suggested for the location of the group's arrival. If her fellows know about us all and they set up a trap, at least Rodney, Ronon and John will have the chance to avoid it by arriving at a different place they would expect them."

"Finally, you have a reasonable idea," Caldwell told her with unkindness.

"Well, it's not something you can say about yourself!" she riposted coolly.

* * *

Doctor Beckett sat down on the chair in front of Claire's cell. He used to sit there a lot when he was talking to the Wraith about harmless things like animals on the Earth or human traditions like celebrating birthdays. Now he felt a bit uncomfortable as he took place and turned to her standing not far from him, in the corner of her jail.

"They are my best friends, Claire," he started talking slowly, weighing every word he uttered. "If your plan is a trap, please, tell me now. There's no use sending my friends to die there..."

She answered sedately, "My plan is not a trap. I found it out to save your city. You can trust me."

Doctor Beckett folded his hands on his knees. "You have my trust, you know it. Just, please, think it over once more. If you have any doubts about my friends' safety, please, tell me. I don't want to send them away to die for nothing. If you have just a little kindness to me in your heart..."

"You can trust me," she repeated. "You don't need to beg me for pity for your friends. My plan is safe, they should do everything as I told them, and it will be alright."

Carson expected at least a little vagueness from her. This immovable equanimity and self-assurance made him feel perplexed. "How can you be this sure?" he asked.

"My plan is good. Have faith in me."

And the doctor could not do anything else, but try to obey her request and try to trust her with all his heart, but it was not easy as his eyes met her usual, cold immobility.

"You know what this all means to me," he whispered with pain in his voice.

"I do." She still did not show any sign of hesitation.

"Alright, I'll go then to say good-bye to my friends and to wish good luck to them."


	22. Chapter 21: Crash

**Chapter 21 - Crash**

John checked his weapons for the last time before he reset them, exactly when Ronon finished sharpening one of his sabers, and he fastened it onto his belt. McKay was restlessly pacing in circles around the two of them.

"What if they find us?" he asked for the twentieth time. "What if the coordinates Claire suggested were better than the new ones I gave?"

"Do you really believe that she gave us the good coordinates?" Ronon scoffed.

"Oh, well, I don't know," Rodney shuddered. "I absolutely don't like her, but she seemed honest to me."

"That's because Carson infected you with his delusions about her," John shook his head with reproof. "She has never wanted to help us; she has some other reasons to send us there. I stake on it the remaining part of my next salary that she is completely bamboozling us."

"Why did you say, then, that her plan was worth trying?" McKay asked, surprised from Sheppard's words.

"I hope that we can fool her too," John replied, "And if we are careful enough, we can avoid the trap in her plan."

"That's perfect," Rodney huffed, "_You hope_... Wonderful!"

The scientist had to stop fuming for a moment because the radio-headset of Sheppard gave a noise, and as he switched it on, they could hear Doctor Weir's voice calling them all up to the Control Room.

"If I die aboard that hive, you will be the one to blame," McKay went on pouting. "You told me that the plan was okay, and you convinced me to join you..."

"Don't worry, we'll die together," Sheppard grinned, as they were all walking in the direction of the transporter.

* * *

Elizabeth was standing among the monitors of the Control Room, clasping her hands behind her back, and she wondered how sick it was that she was more nervous about the fact that she had involuntarily taken Caldwell's hand while talking to the Wraith queen than she was about the fact that she was going to risk her life by visiting the Wraiths. The colonel was not far from her, but he neglected her presence, he crossed his arms, looking in the direction of the door, not turning to her. She did not like that he refused to talk to her again, but she was unsure what to tell him, so she kept silent as well. She knew that it was she who spoiled their slowly improving relationship by sending Caldwell away on the risky Orion mission without showing any sign of her feelings about the decision. From that moment, she felt that nothing was the same as before, and things just continued turning worse, but still, she did not regret her decision of not showing him her concerns about his safety because she knew that it would have made it more difficult for him to leave on that mission if she had done so.

When Rodney, John and Ronon entered the room, she was thankful to them for breaking her train of thought.

"The queen messaged us, we can get transported aboard her hive in ten minutes," she explained to the three arriving persons. "Let's meet Hermiod aboard the Daedalus and get ready for the mission."

Doctor Beckett joined them on their way to the ship, stepping next to Elizabeth, worryingly blinking at her.

"If something bad happens to you all, it will be my fault, won't it?" he asked silently.

"No, no, Carson, it'll definitely be nothing like your fault," Weir told him with comforting calmness. "We had no other choice, the situation is this simple. It's no one's fault, it's the only decision we could make."

Doctor Beckett smiled at her, "Thank you," he whispered. "I hope you'll be alright."

"Don't forsake Claire," Elizabeth answered. "If we got this far, it would be pointless to lose faith in her at the last moment."

Hearing her response, Carson felt that the only person in the universe who could really understand him in this situation was Doctor Weir.

* * *

Doctor Beckett gave a last hug to all of his friends. "I... I hope everything's gonna be alright," he muttered, trying to exclude the worry from his voice.

"Naturally, we'll be alright," McKay answered sarcastically, "We'll just have a nice, cheerful journey. I don't even know why I haven't packed my picnic-basket for the trip..."

"Rodney, stop it," John interrupted quickly. "Carson, don't feel ill about it, we'll make it through."

The doctor smiled sadly. "I have my fingers crossed for you all."

"Can we start the procedure?" Hermiod asked from behind a control panel.

"Yes," Caldwell nodded. "Make sure that you transport both groups at the same time, but not to the same place."

"I've already rewritten the data of the beam-technology system, so I can follow your order with no difficulties," the Asgard answered a bit dourly, seeing the colonel's skepticism.

"Alright. Do it, then," Caldwell replied. Doctor Beckett gulped, as his friends disappeared from the room with a bluish flash.

* * *

Elizabeth and the colonel arrived at a small, dim, reddish room. The place did not remind them of a salon for greeting negotiators. Armed Wraith soldiers rushed in, and they surrounded the two humans, their weapons were pointing right at the visitors.

"The beginning is not particularly promising," Elizabeth raised one of her eyebrows.

A black-haired, dark-robed Wraith captain was standing in the background at the wall of the organic room. He stepped forward now, "Disarm them and lock them in a cell," he ordered his soldiers, and he turned to leave.

"Wait. We came to negotiate with your queen," Weir called after him. The captain turned back for a moment.

"I don't think so. Maybe that was what you believed, but that's false." He left with no further explanations.

* * *

"The groups arrived at the proper coordinates Doctor McKay gave me," the Asgard reported to the doctor apathetically.

Carson respired with relief, but his anguish was still not perfectly eased. He walked back to the Control Room to wait for some results of the mission. It did not take three minutes, and one of the monitors started glinting.

"We're getting an incoming message from the super-hive," a sergeant explained to the doctor, and then he switched a code on the keyboard to let the message be displayed. Carson was expecting the Wraith queen's arrogant picture, but someone else's face appeared on the screen.

"Michael?" Beckett exclaimed, astonished. The half-Wraith's bluish, pulsating skin and his mad sneer made the doctor flinch.

"Oh, Doctor Beckett, still remember me?" Michael asked ironically. "What a pleasure to see you again!"

"I... I thought you were dead..." Doctor Beckett mumbled.

"You all made sure that I'd be dead for now, but – what a horrible tragedy! – I'm still here," the Wraith gave out a loud, sharp laugh.

"Well, okay, it's... it's nice..." Carson stammered. His cheeks grew pale as he foreboded what the half-Wraith's presence meant.

"Why don't you ask about the reason of me messaging to Atlantis right now?" Michael continued mocking him.

"Erm, what... what's your reason?" the doctor inquired diffidently.

"I just wanted to say thank you to your city for sending me such a wonderful present."

"What do you mean?"

"My worst enemies, your pathetic friends are now all at my mercy! I'll cut their heads off, and I will make a great decoration with them. It's a pity you'll be unable to see it because you'll be dead by that time..."

"No, Michael, why would you do such a horrible thing?" Carson asked; his voice was trembling. "My friends have nothing to do with your misery; it was me who transformed you into a human being. It's all my deed. If you want to hurt someone, why don't you take me?"

"It's truly touching how you're trying to take the blame of your doomed fellows, but it just makes me more determined to hurt them," the Wraith responded scornfully. "Now I'm ending my message. I'll be delighted to watch your city falling apart. Oh, and you can express my gratitude to your Wraith captive. Without her help, capturing these bastards and avenging myself on them would have been much more difficult." He burst out in a cold, mirthless laughter, and he cut off the communication; only flashing black and white stripes remained on the screen after him.

The color of Doctor Beckett's face turned into a wax-like shade of paleness as he was catching the meaning of Michael's obscure sentences. He turned away from the screen, and he left the Control Room without a word; the soldiers present looked after him with a questioning glimpse. He ran through the corridors, he stormed into the transporter, and he hit the point where he wanted to teleport himself so forcefully that the glass-map nearly cracked. The bitterness in his eyes burnt with wild flickers. He rushed into the great hall containing the Wraith's cell.

"You heartless monster!" The shout burst out of him with deep pain and despair.

Claire, who was sitting in the corner of her cell and was reading the torn pages from the book about the chinchillas, looked up at him questioningly. When she saw the emotions on the doctor's face, she put the ruins of the book aside, getting up from the floor. Carson pointed his trembling finger at her.

"What have you done?" he asked bitterly. "Oh, my God, what the hell have you done to my friends? We saved your life, we took care of you, we healed you, we protected you from the pain... And that's the reward of our good intent! We trusted you... I really did. I trusted in you."

Claire stared at him with her unemotional, somber Wraith eyes; the blackness of her narrow pupils was like a dark, abysmal hollow. "I did nothing to your friends," she said sedately.

"You led them to a trap! You filthy, vile liar!" Carson subsided into the chair in front of Claire's cell, where he used to sit so many times during her captivity talking to her, reading out to her. He buried his face into his palms. "What have I done? Why have I ever listened to your words? Why did I offer to heal you? Why? I was an idiot. I should've known better..."

"What happened to your friends?" she asked, still soberly.

"You damned liar. You did it... You truly betrayed us! Oh my God, it hurts so much..."

"What happened?" Claire repeated her question.

"Your associates captured my friends aboard the super-hive," Doctor Beckett mumbled in front of him despondently. "They were waiting for all of them, they knew about the plan... Are you feeling happy now?"

Claire did not answer; she just pursed her dark lips.

Carson turned away from her. "I began to really like you, Claire, but now... I'll do everything to organize your execution. I won't feel sorry for you. The only thing I feel sorry for is the valuable time I wasted on you!" That coolness in the doctor's voice was unlike him, Claire had never heard him speak like that before. The mourning over the loss of his friends made the expression on his face rigid and ice-cold. He got up from the chair with dark sadness. "You achieved that all my best friends are dead, even the ones who saved your wretched life. Are you contented now, you ruthless beast?"

She did not give a response.

"I should've known there was no exception," the doctor went on plaintively, "All Wraiths are our enemies, and even though we saved your miserable life you were not thankful to us in the least. Even though I gave you my trust, my affection, even though I spent days reading out to you, helping you, healing you... I did everything for you, I even argued with my best friends to protect you, though they warned me that you were an insidious backstabber. I didn't listen to them, because I believed in you. Just tell me why! Why have you done this to me? Even if you'd said you were unable to help us defeat the super-hive, I would have protected you from my friends' brutal ways to interrogate you. But no, you had to lie to me, you had to betray me! It was not enough for you to simply watch our city get destroyed; you had to send my best friends into the trap of a maniac who will chop them into pieces! So that's the way you Wraiths stand by your friends. So that's the way you Wraiths love."

"You know nothing about my feelings," she said slowly, with wintry composure.

"Yes, that's true. And I'd rather kill myself than to have any of your so-called _feelings_!"

She stood there at the electric wall of the cell petrified from hearing the doctor's words; she did not give an answer.

"We'll never see each other again, Claire. I'll order your guards to execute you in half an hour. And before I die with the city, the only thing I will remember about you is your foulness!"

She threw back her head haughtily. "If that's what you want to believe, I can't change that with anything I could say. Go, then. You are as stupid and pathetic as any other human being..."

The doctor came to a brief halt. "You know what?" he said finally, "Maybe you are right, I'm pathetic and stupid. Yes, I am, because I should have let you die instead of saving you and wasting my time, my feelings on you!" Carson started to walk away.

"Are these your last words to me?" she hissed after him; all her muscles tensed again. The doctor went out of the room, he headed for the transporter. All of a sudden, she smote the wall of her cell with her hands, creating a bluish energy-pulsation where she touched the surface.

"No. Doctor Beckett, no!" Claire screeched in abrupt despair, hitting the wall again and again, while Carson was stepping into the transporter. "Don't leave me! Please, don't leave! Doctor Beckett!" Her last words echoed in the empty room, for the doctor left without even turning back to her.

"Doctor Beckett!" she screamed as loud as she could. Her helpless rage made her hit again with such force that she nearly broke her knuckles.


	23. Chapter 22: Imprisoned

**Chapter 22 – Imprisoned**

The amorphous rails were blocking the entrance of the cell as the Wraith soldiers locked it by pressing a combination of buttons at the outer panel. They took away Colonel Caldwell's uniform jacket plus all the weapons they found on their captives, and they left with a heavy tread.

First, Doctor Weir walked around in the cell, and she examined the walls, but she could not see anything else, just the reddish black tissue of the hive. At some places, she could recognize thin branches running around in the web of the meat-like, organic material like veins in a human body.

"It's my fault," she whispered. She stepped to the colonel, putting her hand to Caldwell's right arm and looking him in the eye with sorrow. "I shouldn't have let you come here with me. You should've stayed aboard the Daedalus."

"No. It's alright," he answered, breaking the eye contact by turning his head away. "The point is that you should've listened to me when I told you not to trust a Wraith."

Doctor Weir got angry for he started again his pugnacity. "We did not have a better idea!" she replied fretfully. "If you'd had a reasonable plan how to stop this damned super-hive, I would not have cooperated with a Wraith. You should've told me a better way to solve the situation, not just always find faults! It's easy to judge the others' work if you do nothing."

"Well, it's still better than getting ourselves killed for nothing," he retorted.

"It seemed to be our only chance to destroy this hive before it blows up Atlantis. You have no responsibility for the citizens of Atlantis, well, of course, it was not so urgent for you to find a solution. For the Earth, the matter was still far away, in another Galaxy. You are just interested in the problems which cut the U.S. army to the quick! A distant city in the Pegasus, far away from the Earth means only a unique, interesting chance to find new weapons and a useful alien technique, but if..."

Caldwell seized her arms and cornered her against the moist wall of their cell with such force that she panted for breath in surprise.

"Don't you dare speak to me like that again," he snarled. "How the hell can you accuse me of having no interest in keeping Atlantis? I've already risked my ship and my own life many times for the city. I've battled against hives with the help of the Daedalus, I've hazarded the lives of everyone aboard my ship just to correct some stupid mistakes that you and your beloved Sheppard made!"

"Oh, I'm sure you're the greatest hero I've ever met," Weir cut him off sarcastically, "but I don't think that feeding your ego would change the fact that you did not have a single idea how to destroy this hive, you just kept on fussing and demurring all the time! If you think that it helped, I'm clueing you up now: you just made my life more difficult! That was the only thing you achieved with your behavior."

"I see," Caldwell still held her rough against the wall, "You suppose that the good reactions in danger are those when someone, like your dear Sheppard, risks an idiotic, suicidal plan."

"Firstly, I've had enough of your innuendos! John Sheppard is neither beloved nor dear to me in a way you suggest; he is only a good friend of mine. Anyway, my relationship to him is none of your business, so, please, stop hinting at it! Secondly, I don't like risky, foolish plans either, but there are situations when we _must_ do something, and if we have no other choice, we have to venture the only plan we have. Thirdly, in such a case, if I make a hard decision which should inevitably be made, it is not the most pleasant thing if there is an argumentative colonel who spends his days constantly questioning my decision and playing the role of an affronted martyr!"

Caldwell did not answer, but he kept his strong grip so tightly that it began to cause pain in Weir's arms, or maybe it had already caused much pain, but until that moment she had not realized it, she was so deeply engaged in her rage. Now she winced and tried to free herself. Caldwell stirred, looking down at his hands holding Elizabeth roughly; it was obvious that - till this moment - he had not sensed either how forcefully he grabbed her.

"Sorry," he told her quietly, letting her free.

"It's okay," she answered, rubbing the painful spots on her arms. Caldwell turned away from her, and he sat down in the most distant corner of the cell; Doctor Weir leaned against the wall. They saw that staying silent would be the most delectable option for both of them.

For a while, they kept quiet, but then, suddenly, Caldwell quickened. He pulled a metal object out of his left pocket.

"I've nearly forgotten..." he muttered. "I have a pocket-knife with me which was overlooked by the Wraith who searched us for weapons." He opened the little knife. "We should make a plan how to use it for breaking free from this cell."

"That's impossible," Weir shook her head. "What the hell do you want to do with a tiny knife against these monsters and their complex technology?"

"I have no idea, but maybe we can find it out..." His voice faded, because a couple of Wraith soldiers appeared around the corner of the passage leading to their cell. Behind them, the Wraith captain came, his dark cloak was rustling around his ankles with every step he took.

"Colonel, please, put that knife away. If the Wraiths catch sight of it, they will shoot you down," Elizabeth whispered to Caldwell.

"It would be no problem for you, would it?" he asked coldly, but he obeyed, folding up the pocket-knife and slipping it back into his pocket.

"Arrogant jerk," Weir seethed, tilting her head to the side in a provocative manner. Caldwell got up from the corner, and he stepped indignantly in her direction. It seemed that they would have started arguing again, if the Wraiths had not reached their cell in time. The Wraith captain opened the entrance of their cell and went in, followed by his inferiors. Weir and Caldwell took a few steps backwards instinctively.

"I'm telling you what your situation is here," the captain said in a raspy, hostile voice. "We will take you and torture you until you tell us the coordinates where your fellows landed aboard our hive. Yes, we know about it, you don't need to pretend there was no virus planned to get sent into our system. You'd better take it from me: we have horrid ways to interrogate humans like you two. In the end, all the same how much willpower you have, you will tell us what we want. It's useless for you to go through that much pain for nothing. I'm giving you an alternative: you can tell me the coordinates now, in which case we won't hurt you at all. That's your only chance to avoid meaningless sufferings. So come on, give me the coordinates."

Weir and Caldwell looked at each other apprehensively, but they both stayed silent.

"You do not have much time to decide," the Wraith told them coolly. "I'll count to ten. If you don't tell me the coordinates in this time-period, I'll take away one of you for a _debriefing_... Believe me; you don't want it at all."

"We won't tell them to you," Doctor Weir answered in an immovable tone, "You don't need to count, that won't make us change our mind."

"Well, alright. Then, who will be the first to come with us?" The Wraith captain turned his monster-face to the two captives with an evil gleam in his eyes.

To Doctor Weir's greatest astonishment, at the very moment the question was asked, Caldwell stepped protectively between the Wraiths and her, with no hesitation at all.

"Take me," he told the captain.

"No!" Elizabeth protested instantly, and she stood beside him. She did not even think through what she was doing, she just acted according to her first emotional reaction. "Take me."

Caldwell shot a resentful glance at her. "Stay out of this," he told her coldly, "They should take me."

"No, I won't let it happen. I want them to torture me, not you!"

Caldwell turned to the Wraiths again. "Well, she doesn't know the proper coordinates, so if you want to get the real ones to find our associates, you should take me," he improvised.

"That's not true!" Doctor Weir shook her head. "I know the coordinates. You should take me. He is a tough soldier, so you won't ever get a word from him. Take me; I'm just a weak woman."

"Don't do this," Caldwell hissed at her angrily. "I don't want you to get tortured."

He pulled her forcefully behind him, shielding her from the Wraiths.

"And I don't want you to get tortured either," she answered in a feverish whisper, tugging Caldwell backwards, and she hustled in front of him, but at the same moment he pushed her back to her former place again. "Take me. Please, take me instead of him," she begged the Wraith captain.

"Shut up," Caldwell snarled and tried to keep her away from the Wraiths, but she fought really hard to change the position and to get back in front of him. Their hustle began to turn into a real fight as they both struggled more and more forcefully to have their will.

"How pathetic you human beings are," the Wraith captain growled. "I see that it's better if I make a decision." He gestured to his inferiors, "Bring the female one."

The soldiers grabbed Doctor Weir by her arms, and they drew her out of the cell. Caldwell stepped forward with the intention to attack the Wraiths, but Elizabeth told him calmly, "Don't do a thing." She seemed grotesquely happy that the Wraiths chose her instead of the colonel. "Let them take me away, I'm gonna be alright. I won't say a thing to them."

"We'll see," the Wraith captain snorted. "I guess you've never been tortured by Wraiths."

Caldwell pushed the Wraith to the moist wall, but the monster hit him back so fiercely that he flew across the cell and collapsed in the corner.

"Colonel!" Doctor Weir tried to rush to him to see if he was alright, but the Wraiths held her back, pulling her in the other direction.

The Wraith captain locked the cell. "You don't have to be impatient," he told Caldwell derisively. "If she dies from her torments, you'll be the next."

"You sick son of a bitch," Caldwell sat up, cursing. "If I ever get free, I will kill you with my own hands."

The Wraith turned away, following his inferiors, who were dragging Doctor Weir through the corridor. They carried the woman in the opposite room at the end of the passage. It was dark there, Caldwell could not see from his cell what that chamber exactly looked like. The curtain of meat-colored offshoots closed behind the Wraiths and their captive.

Two Wraith guards arrived at the end of the corridor to keep an eye on Caldwell. He got up from the floor, feeling the pain from the collision all over his body, but he did not care. He went to the entrance of the cell and hit the crooked, misshapen rails. It caused an electric discharge at the point where his palms touched the surface, and it burnt his hands.

He saw there was no use banging the rails, but the helpless anger in his heart made him wish he could break something into tiny pieces. He looked down at his palms, his skin turned into a shade of blood-red where the rails burnt them.

A shrill scream was audible from the opposite chamber, which showed Caldwell that the Wraiths were truly torturing Elizabeth Weir. He felt the blood freeze in his veins, he closed his eyes. Her screams were full of shrewd pain as they were echoing in the dun corridors. He hit the bars again. "Please, don't hurt her," he cried out, but he knew that it did not matter. The Wraith guards were standing still at the end of the passage.

He stood there for a while, just staring at the rails with dark repulsion. As some time passed, the numb bitterness of his powerlessness filled his heart; he flopped down onto the floor and pressed his hands on his ears not to hear her agonized shrieks. In his thoughts, he was begging Fate to end this suffering.

Later he grabbed his pocket-knife, and he tried to make plans again and again how to get out of the cell. If he broke free, maybe he could have a chance to save Doctor Weir as well...


	24. Chapter 23: Setting Up

**Chapter 23 – Setting Up**

John, Rodney and Ronon landed in a deserted storage for damaged Wraith armors. Dusty, dark racks and barrels were surrounding the arriving group.

"Okay, guys, let's stay very silent," Rodney breathed, looking around nervously.

"It seems you chose a good place for us to arrive," John deduced, "There's not a living soul here."

They slowly, carefully approached the exit door.

"Maybe, there are guards outside," Rodney distressed himself, but his worries disappeared soon, when they saw that the corridor was empty too.

"They've been centering their forces somewhere else," Ronon remarked with sharpness in his voice.

"You mean the place Claire suggested us to land?" McKay asked.

"Yes, of course, they are waiting for us there. Unfortunately, they'll realize in two minutes that we won't arrive at that spot, and they'll start searching for us."

"Look at that room on the left side of the passage," Rodney gestured towards a greater hall not far from them. "If we could break in, I could connect my palmtop to their system. If I remember well the map Claire created, that's a supplementary control room for the auxiliary engine system, and it's a perfect place for me to plant the virus unnoticed by their technicians."

"Let's do it." John prepared his gun, and they stalked to the first corner of the corridor. The place was clear, so they could enter the supplementary control room. A single Wraith mechanic worked in front of a screen, but Ronon shot him down quickly, and then they could occupy the room.

Rodney opened his palmtop, and he seated himself in front of a console for the technical control of the room's system. John and Ronon stood at the two sides of the entrance, keeping their weapons ready for a probable fight. They kept quiet for a while. After ten minutes had passed, John asked with a bored yawn, "Rodney, how much time do you still need for starting that virus?"

"What?" the scientist raised his head, and he stopped typing at his palmtop for a moment, "You're beginning to get impatient this soon? I need at least an hour."

"How much time?" Ronon and Sheppard asked simultaneously with a shocked expression on their face.

"At least an hour, if everything goes well..."

"What the hell...?" John moaned out. "They will surely find us in an hour."

"I told you this plan was suicidal! What did you believe? That we will just walk in and explode the super-hive with a flick of my hand?" McKay pouted. "I have to convert some parts of the virus program to make it compatible with this collateral system I'm using to connect the virus."

"Rodney, can't you just... quicken things somehow? We don't have an hour," John told him. "Even if they have no idea about our arrival, they will find us, if you can't work more speedily."

"Stop it," the scientist grunted. "I've had enough of being the one who has to work at least ten times faster than it's possible. I'll try everything, but anyhow, the conversion needs about sixty minutes. Oh, and it's another sixty minutes while the virus activates the self-destruction system and blows the hive up."

"Okay, okay, let's just remain silent, and work," John answered resignedly. He leaned against the wall by the entrance. "Don't bother if Ronon and I simply die here while guarding the room for you to have enough time to start the virus."

"Don't push it," Rodney retorted, "I'm trying to be as quick as possible." He turned back to typing.

"Hey, what's that over there?" Ronon asked suddenly, and he rushed out of the room to the corridor.

"Ronon, what are you doing?" John whispered after him, signing him to come back. The Satedan warrior paid no attention to the lieutenant colonel, he hurried to a blob on the organic tissue of the hive. "It's an old, human bloodstain," he explained to his friends, examining it with narrowed eyes. He touched the spot and picked something out of it. He returned to John, showing him what he had just found. "A copper-colored hair," he said. "It's not from a Wraith, that bloodstain is a human's, I'm sure of it. And look at the color! It reminds me of Teyla's hair-color."

John surveyed the long hair thoroughly by pulling it nearer to his eyes, and then watching it from a distance, even keeping it in the way of his flashlight.

"Maybe," he said finally without much conviction, "It might be hers."

"You don't believe that it's hers, do you?" Ronon asked.

"The color might be that of her hair, but how could her blood and hair appear aboard this super-hive? It seems impossible."

"Perhaps the Wraiths kidnapped her. Remember what Elizabeth Weir said? She supposed that Corporal Ridge might have been a Wraith in human form... He might be a member of the crew of this super-hive, and he might have brought Teyla aboard."

"Well, it's a possibility, yes," John murmured reflectively.

"If she is here, we need to find her, before the hive explodes," Ronon stated. "We can't let her die here, if she is still alive. If she is captured..."

"If... if... There are too many _if_s in this theory," Sheppard shook his head. "However, it would be a wonderful turn of events if we were able to find her and we were able to leave with her."

"Let me go and search for her," Ronon said emphatically. "If she's here, I'll rescue her."

"Are you sure you want to act like a self-styled hero when we are in the middle of a deadly mission?" McKay huffed in the background. "I want Teyla back as well, but if you go to seek for her, you'll just attract the attention of the Wraiths."

"I'm afraid, Rodney is right about it," John told Ronon. "You'd risk too much by leaving this room..."

"Look at this hair," Ronon thrust it under Sheppard's nose. "It's hers. She's here, I know it."

"Chill out," the lieutenant colonel lifted his right hand up. "We don't leave our friends behind; we'll find out how to rescue Teyla."

"I need the remaining two hours to find her," Ronon went on with a demanding tone. "McKay needs two hours to explode the hive, the hive needs two hours to explode Atlantis. All the same how this ends, I have at best two hours to do something for Teyla. Let me go and try to find her!"

John bethought himself of it for a minute. "Well, alright," he yielded consent to the request. "Just be very careful with the Wraiths. Don't attract their attention, for if they see you, they'll know that you have associates somewhere around, and they'll search for us."

"Okay, okay, I'll remain unnoticed," Ronon promised, he adjusted his weapons, and then he slid away from the room.

"It was a bad idea," Rodney told John. "Or do you think you can protect me from a legion of Wraiths all by yourself?"

"I can't, but in a situation like that, it would not make a big difference, if Ronon was here with us."

"It would!"

"Rodney, you can't be this selfish. Maybe he can save Teyla's life."

"Oh, I see," the scientist groused, "Her life is more important than mine!"

"No, I didn't mean that," John protested heatedly. "There's nothing in the whole universe that could be more important for me than your life."

Rodney looked up from his work. "What have you just said?" he asked, astonished at John's words. He thought it was some kind of a bizarre joke, but Sheppard's expression seemed earnest. The soldier said nothing else; he just rested his eyes on the scientist intensely.

"Oh, well, it's... it's... it's very nice and friendly of you," Rodney faltered, and he hurriedly turned back to his palmtop, but he felt that the sentence would echo in his mind, and it would make incredibly hard to go on with his task undisturbed.


	25. Chapter 24: Farewell

**Chapter 24 – Farewell**

Doctor Beckett walked slowly to the metal-handrail surrounding the Atlantisian balcony. He leaned against the cold bars, looking up at the sky. The magnificence of the pompadour-colored explosions of the super-hive's constant shots mixing with the silvery light of the shield made him feel as if he was dreaming and as if all the nightmares of the last hour had disappeared. This illusion lasted only for a few moments, then the pain and despair returned, and he hung his head unhappily.

He was not sure whom to blame: himself for believing a Wraith or Claire for deceiving him so despicably. He would not have thrown stones at Claire if she had simply refused to help the city, but this sly manipulation she had done to play his friends into Michael's hands broke the poor doctor's heart.

At first, the shallow feeling of vindictiveness made Doctor Beckett contented with the fact that he had left her so ruthlessly alone in her cell to wait for her own execution, but now he began to feel sorry for her. Even though she did not deserve anything better, he started wondering if he behaved like a heartless monster too. What would he have done in her place? Maybe, he would have done the same thing she had done. And he condemned her for lying, though he would have done the same had he been in her shoes!

"I was narrow-minded to simply drag up my own grievances, and I accused her of being a traitor, though she was noble and loyal to her own community," he thought. "From this point of view, my letdown doesn't seem important anymore. If Claire really doesn't have any positive feelings for me, all that she did seems sensible. She did not do it to hurt me; she just did it to serve the interests of her own folk. Of Michael... I have no idea what kind of relationship can be between Michael and Claire, but I condemned her for helping Michael with his revenge! It was truly unfair." As he kept on thinking of it, he felt more and more certain that he behaved like a selfish narcissist by saying those horrible things to her. Of course, it was cruel and remorseless how she let him down, but the way he talked to her afterwards was not much better than what she did...

"What the hell did I expect?" he quickly shook his head. "She has feelings neither for Michael nor for anyone else. She herself told me that there weren't personal bonds between Wraiths like between humans. She even scoffed at our ways to complicate our human relationships! She has no love, no loyalty, no friendship and no lofty reasons in her heart; she is just an insidious liar. I'm nothing like her. I'd never betray anyone the way she did to me; I'd never do such a thing. Every word I told her was true, she deserves what comes. She is the most evil creature I've ever met."

Carson felt painful stiffness in his knuckles, as he pressed his fingers so hard around the bar of the balcony. He let them loosen up, and he massaged his hands, before he turned to walk back into the building complex.

"That's the way a vengeful, self-centered person judges his surroundings. Without trying to understand her culture, her bonds to her community and her experiences with humans, I blame her for what she did," he thought reprovingly. "That's what I've never wanted to become... Someone like that. And the pain of losing my friends turns me into one... I can't let it happen." He felt that he had to talk to Claire one last time before she died.

* * *

Claire was sitting in the corner of her cell motionless. Her dark, long hair framed her face like a black curtain as she was merely staring in front of her. Suddenly, she felt the presence of a human, someone she recognized from the many scents of the other citizens of the huge city. She looked up, and she saw Doctor Beckett, he was standing at the entrance of the room, resting his eyes on her. He must have sent away the guards, since he was perfectly alone.

"You said you would not come back ever again," she told him silently, her voice was nearly inaudible.

"In ten minutes, your execution will be held. You can have a last wish, if you are quick enough to decide," he said to her coolly.

"A last wish?" she echoed.

"It's a human tradition. When we execute someone, he or she can make a final wish before dying."

"What for?" Claire wondered.

"It has no use," the doctor replied languidly. "You know, we humans don't always do things for a material purpose, there are some things we do just for doing the right thing. To be good."

His somber tone showed that he meant his words to confront her. Claire shrugged, "You humans should not be so proud of your _brilliant_ ways to do the right thing."

"At least, we have an idea about good and evil. From this point of view, you are just an immoral, stony-hearted monster," he retorted sardonically, "And you'll never understand the pain you put me through."

"I told you that you knew nothing about my feelings," she answered bleakly. "There's nothing else left for me to say to you."

"So you don't have a last wish?"

Claire lifted her head up slowly. "Look me in the eye! That's all I wish from you."

Doctor Beckett obeyed a bit surprised, and he turned straight in her direction. As he caught sight of the grayish, familiar, cool look in her eyes, he sighed mournfully.

"No!" He broke the eye contact hastily. "Do you want me to sympathize with you after all you did to my friends?"

"I meant to do nothing bad to your friends, you should know it."

"_I __should __know __it_?" The doctor asked with so much bitterness in his voice that it made Claire's lips slightly tremble. He went on angrily, "Either you are completely insane, or you think I'm one. Do you really take me for such a gullible moron that you think I would still believe your abominable mendacity?"

"If you ever really understood me, _you __should __know __it __now_."

Carson glared at her. She stood up, adjusting her dark robe which had been fixed for the doctor's request after the burns it had suffered in the crash. Her mysterious, greenish face, her unreadable eyes, her impassively pressed thin lips showed nothing to Doctor Beckett about what she could have on her mind. The doctor sadly felt that he was truly unable to trust her anymore.

"I can't..." he murmured. "You know, I believed in you so much, I put my trust in you, but now I can't... I'm simply unable to feel that way anymore."

She accepted it with a slow nod. "Are you planning to kill me with your own hands?" she asked flatly.

"You know what I'm planning to do! Be damned forever," he hissed, and he suddenly hit at the lock panel of her cell. With a bitter motion, he switched the opening code. "Go!" he shouted at her. "Go, you bloody monster. Be quick, otherwise the city will destroy you. The transporter is at the end of the corridor, you'll easily seek out the lot for the puddle jumpers on the map. Under the water you can find a way to leave the city even with the shields on. Go now! Save your hide, return to your folk, and live as long and happily as you can. I don't want to hear about you ever again."

He turned away with sheer unhappiness on his face. Claire lifted her hands up to her neck, and she opened the clasp of her necklace.

"Take it, it's yours from now on," she said hurriedly, pressing her pendant in the doctor's right hand. At the next moment, she wasn't there anymore; she was running to the transporter as fast as she could, her black cloak flying behind her like the wings of a huge, dark bird. Doctor Beckett's fingers were clutching tightly the hard surface of the pendant, while he was flopping down onto the floor, leaning his head to the cold metal of the wall, feeling the judders running down to the core of the building as the powerful shots of the super-hive kept on hitting the shield surrounding Atlantis.


	26. Chapter 25: The Decision

**Chapter 25 – The Decision**

Caldwell knew that all the plans appearing in his head were useless, and only good for getting himself killed without the tiniest effort. He was alone with a single little knife against two gross Wraith soldiers with stronger spear guns than any human-made weapon. The only plan that seemed possible to carry out was a really foolish one. If he was able to lure one of the guards into his cell, he could use the opportunity to acquire a spear gun and shoot the Wraiths. Well, maybe it sounded promising at first, but on second thought, he saw how miserable his plan was. The Wraith guards were stronger than any human being, it seemed impossible to get their weapon if he did not have much luck. He would have only one chance to try it...

It was hell to sit there and do nothing. He heard Elizabeth Weir's screams, he knew how much she suffered, he knew that she had been tortured for at least half an hour now if not longer, and what did he do to end it? Nothing. He was waiting for some miracle to happen, and he was just sitting there. He began to consider himself as a chicken-hearted coward for not venturing something. _Sheppard__'__s __team __would __try __it_. That thought stirred up dark loathing and disgust in his heart. Hatred against himself and against those damned lucky bastards who survived anything, all the same how impossible the situation seemed. And he was just pondering his chances, while the Wraiths caused Elizabeth Weir unbearable pain and who knew what else they did to her!

He got up and went slowly to the rails. The guards watched him in a mistrustful way. He started calculating how much quickness, dexterity and strength he needed to come by the weapon of a Wraith. After that, he should avoid all the beams coming from the spear gun of the other guard and speedily shoot the Wraiths down; then he should break in the opposite door at the end of the passage and try to save Doctor Weir from the two other Wraith soldiers and the Wraith captain. A bitter, tormented smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. Even to imagine this idiotic plan was ridiculous. He should have had at least ten lives to survive it. Not to mention the option if the guards started the alarm-system and he would have to face the whole Wraith legion.

"_Sheppard __would __try __it,__"_ a devilish voice whispered in his head. _"__He __would __try __it __because __he __is __a __brave, __self-reliant __soldier __and __not __an __old __craven __like __you, __looking __for __safety...__"_

He wished he could stop thinking like that. He knew that he did not have a chance (really no chance at all) to escape from his cell and save Elizabeth Weir. Then, why did he have to torment himself with these thoughts? John Sheppard himself would be unable to do a single thing in this case. And why the hell was it a reasonable way for him to compare himself to Sheppard in such a situation? It was bad enough; he should not have topped it with self-loathing and useless reflections on reckless, self-appointed heroes...

"_Well, __she __likes __that,__"_ the evil thought swayed his mind unmercifully. _"__Maybe, __that__'__s __your __only __chance __to __prove __her __that __you __are __at __least __half __the __man __her __beloved __John __Sheppard __is. __How __the __hell __could __you __expect __her __to __respect __you, __if __you __don__'__t __risk __a __heroic __battle __to __save __her? __She __likes __them, __those __kinds __of __men. __That__'__s __why __she __loves __him. __She __loves __Sheppard.__"_

"_No, __no,__"_ he tried to sweep away the idea. _"__She __told __me __an __hour __ago __that __she __was __not __in __love __with __him. __Anyway, __she __is __not __the __kind __of __person __who __falls __for __spectacular __heroism __with __no __real __sense.__"_

"_Oh, if she is not like that, then why is she obsessed with Sheppard and why has she never ever noticed you?"_

"_Well, even if she feels so, it has nothing to do with risking suicidal plans. Sheppard is younger, more handsome and more easy-going than me. She has every right to love him instead of me, and I can't change that fact with pathetic bravados leading to my death."_

"_And what if you succeeded? What if you were able to save her from the Wraiths?"_

"_I can't save her. It's impossible."_

"_But, if there is a tiny chance..."_

A squelchy noise dragged him out of his frustrating thoughts - the meat-colored curtain of offshoots opened at the end of the corridor, and the Wraith captain stepped out. He had a metal instrument in his hand, a silvery stick with long, crooked pins on its peak. Thick, red blood was dripping from the hooks. Caldwell stared with numb shudder at the instrument of torture.

"Bring him in," the captain ordered the guards, and he gestured at Caldwell.

They obeyed, coming to him with a heavy tread. The spear guns were pointed right at him; he had no chance to use his knife against them, he had to follow the Wraiths reluctantly. He deliberated over the opportunity to grab one of the weapons and acquire it, but the angle of the two guns secured that if he attacked one of the guards, the other one could shoot him down at once.

They reached the room where the Wraiths were torturing Elizabeth Weir. It was not much bigger than the cell, the walls were battered; the dark floor was covered with old and fresh bloodstains. She was chained to a chair in the middle of the place. Her bust soaked in blood which came from the sores beneath her neck. Her trousers were cut up to her knees; her calves were striped with reddish, grimy marks of burns. He could see violet-colored bruises on her arms, and some of her fingers were twisted in an unhealthy angle, he suspected that they must have been broken.

The Wraith captain went straight to Doctor Weir, and he thrust the metallic hooks right into the wounds at her collarbone. The appliance began to pulsate with a bluish light, which made her body squirm. She leaned her head back in torment, and she screamed out loud. The hissing of the instrument of torture in the greenish hand of the Wraith captain was nearly inaudible. She gasped with pain even when the metal hooks left her flesh. Crimson blood was running from the wounds, mixing with the lighter shade of her torn t-shirt.

"Doctor Weir," Caldwell mumbled. She turned her face in the direction of his stunned voice, and she caught sight of him. In spite of the pain she must have gone through, she made a faint, but glad smile, when she saw that he was unscathed. That smile made Caldwell's heart skip a beat.

"I'm alright, it's not so bad," she panted, but her tormented, choking voice certified to the contrary. "Just let them do to me what they want... It's okay. I won't say a thing to them."

"We are not interested in _your_ answers anymore," the Wraith captain told her coldly, "We want _him_ to tell us the coordinates." He turned to Caldwell, whose eyes were opening wide.

"I won't," his determined reply came.

"Well, I guess, you would like to see her being tortured and killed, then." The Wraith said sarcastically, and he thrust the hooks again into the woman's already torn up, bleeding wounds. The metal instrument pulsated, making Elizabeth Weir scream with agony.

"Stop it," Caldwell shouted at the Wraith captain.

"No, not until you tell me the coordinates." The Wraith pressed the bent needles deeper into her flesh. A blood-drop appeared in the corner of Weir's mouth. "I'll leave you two alive, if you tell us the location of your friends," the Wraith captain promised.

"You don't need to tell them anything," Elizabeth wheezed. Her voice was contorted with pain. "I'll sustain it."

"I won't say a thing." Caldwell tried to fake a self-assured tone. "It's better if you torture me, since her sufferings have no effect on me," he told the Wraith captain with as much coldness as he just managed to put into his voice.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" the Wraith snarled. "You can spare me your see-through lies."

Elizabeth was coughing, and blood began to stream at first from her nose, then from her mouth as well. Caldwell noted in stupor that her lungs must have been pinned by the long hooks, this was how blood got into her windpipe.

"Take me," he asked the Wraith. "Do to me whatever you want, just stop her torments and let her live."

"If you give us the coordinates, I will not hurt her anymore, I promise you," the Wraith captain told him disgustingly calmly.

"Don't believe him, they will kill both of us, if you tell them the location," she moaned. "Don't try to stop them. I'm alright... it's okay..." She coughed up again; blood spattered from her throat, and the red liquid overlaid her chin and her neck.

"You should decide quickly," the Wraith told Caldwell. "She won't be able to bear much more pain..."

"Colonel... please... don't listen... to him. Don't try... to stop him. Just... let him... hurt me..." Every word Weir uttered made her struggle for breath even harder. She tried to stop coughing, but the hot, salty blood filled her windpipe, and she could not control her respiration anymore.

Caldwell closed his eyes because he felt unable to stand the sight of her - bleeding to death in front of him.

"You stupid, stubborn human beings," the Wraith snapped. He seemed to become furious, impatient. "I will stab her if you don't tell me the coordinates now!"

The paleness of Caldwell's face turned into an unhealthy, ashen tone. He clenched his fists, and he kept his eyes closed. If he had been a private person, he would have sacrificed their plan, their work, everything they fought for just to end this torture, and he would have given away the coordinates instantly, but he was here from the armed forces, he represented a planet, not his own opinion, he had to stand for Atlantis, for the US government, for nations. He had a duty, he had his orders from his superiors, and he had to do what the best was for the whole community of Atlantis, for the Earth. He knew that it would be the greatest weakness to betray their mission just to save Elizabeth Weir, and she would consider it as a foolish decision too. Saving her this way would be deleterious and pathetic.

He was a high-ranking officer, and not for nothing. He could always reconcile his private opinion with the orders he had to obey, and so far he had not found real difficulty in doing so. He got used to it soon: if he wanted to make a career in the military, he had to learn how to put his personal affairs aside. But, of course, this situation was something he had never met before.

"It's okay," he heard Weir's bubbling voice saturated with blood. "Don't feel bad about it; it's not your fault... Let it happen. Let them kill me."

Caldwell opened his eyes. He saw the expression on the cruel, ugly face of the Wraith captain. He saw the shining metal weapon, which was pulled back by the Wraith; the Wraith did not want to stop hurting the woman, he was just mustering up strength to stab her. He saw the intent in the Wraith's eyes. He was still unable to look at her; he focused on the monster in front of him.

"Before she dies, I will drain all her strength and vigor left in her. I'm getting hungry." The Wraith captain became complacent again, though it was obvious that he had given up the hope to persuade Caldwell with his extortion. "We still have time to find out the location in some other way, and we still have you. So, if you choose to keep silent, then it is her last breath..."

The Wraith brandished the instrument of torture, but Caldwell's hoarse, dim voice stopped him.

"Enough. Let her live. I'll tell you the location. I'll tell you anything you want, just, please, don't hurt her anymore."

"No," Elizabeth whimpered. "Don't... don't tell them a thing... don't do that... Colonel!"

"Alright," the Wraith captain lowered the instrument of torture, turning to Caldwell. "If you try to deceive us, I will kill both of you with much more pain than you ever believed to exist, but if you tell us the correct coordinates to find your friends, I will let you take her to a healer."

"I... I will tell you the truth," Caldwell gulped. "Give me something, I'll write it down for you."

One of the Wraith soldiers handed a piece of greenish brown, sloppy panel and a thin metal stick to him. He carved the coordinates into the pane, then he gave it back. As soon as he had finished it, he rushed to Doctor Weir, who was still coughing blood. He put his arms around her shoulders, helping her to keep herself in a sitting position, and he freed her wrists from the chains. The Wraith captain signed for his inferiors to escort the two captives to their cell, and he left, carrying away the panel of the coordinates with him. Caldwell took the quivering, blood-covered woman in his arms, and he carefully lifted her up. He followed the Wraiths back along the dark corridor transpiring moisture.

When they were back in their cell, and they were already left alone, he laid her warily down on the floor. He took off his own t-shirt, for he did not have a better idea, and he put the tissue carefully to the leaking wounds on her bust. He began slowly mopping up the salty, red fluid.

"Lie still," he told her silently as he was wiping off some blood. He adjusted her into a position so that she could reject her blood onto the floor instead of swallowing it back by misadventure.

"You gave them a false location, didn't you?" she asked weakly.

"No. I wrote them the real one. I don't want them to continue torturing you. If I had written something false for them, they would have realized it in two minutes, and they would have started again to hurt you," he replied quietly.

"What does it matter? They will never let us free. They will kill us either way," she choked.

"I won't let you die." That was his only answer.

"You should have sacrificed me, you should have let them kill me..."

"Don't speak now, it does you harm."


	27. Chapter 26: Wraiths

**Chapter 26 – Wraiths**

The shades were gathering on the reddish-blue tissue of the walls. The noise of the engines was droning monotonously under the great hall of the super-hive's throne-room, the organic projections of the ship were vaporizing miasmatic steam into the air. The queen leaned back on her throne; her red hair was running down on her shoulders like fresh blood from a slashed artery.

Michael made a deep bow to her as he was walking down the hall.

"You called me," he started circumspectly, keeping his eyes carefully on the queen, as if she had been a dangerous beast ready to attack him anytime she felt like.

She slowly lifted her left hand to her chin, supporting her head lazily, while Michael was inching closer to her.

"It's about the captive of the humans, your trapped Wraith servant," she gave her reason for citing him to the throne room. "She escaped from the humans somehow."

Michael looked up at her in sheer surprise; he would never have believed Claire to regain her freedom in any way. The queen pressed a flat, orange-colored button with her bony fingers on the armrest of her throne, and a monitor appeared between two branches on the wall. The picture of Claire became visible on the screen as she was leisurely leaning against the console of the jumper stolen from Atlantis, pattering with the tip of her dark nails on the surface of the control panel bored.

"She asked for our permission to land aboard our hive," the queen explained to Michael, getting up and starting to walk down the organic stairs supporting her throne. "She had been ordered to serve you before she got captured, so now it's your task to decide if she can return to us or not."

Michael frowned. "I'm not sure if she deserves our trust anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I couldn't see her exact thoughts, so I'm not certain if she tried to deceive us or what she really planned to achieve, but..."

"Well, she has always been cunning and dangerous," she nodded.

"I think we should simply kill her with a shot of the hive."

"Are you afraid of her?" the queen asked tauntingly. The question made Michael wince.

"I'm afraid of no one!" he barked at her resentfully, "Especially not of this calculating bitch!"

"Then, why don't you welcome her aboard our hive and try to find out her true intention?"

The half-Wraith shrugged, "I just don't think that she can be of any use to us."

The queen turned her eyes to the picture of Claire. "It's your job to decide if you want to let her come back or if you choose to kill her," she said, "but I want you to weigh every fact up."

Michael started to regret showing his negative attitude towards the humans' captive because he saw that the queen sympathized with her.

"The vanquished queen," she murmured, keeping her eyes on the screen.

"Don't call her a queen, she's not a queen anymore," Michael said acidly. "She was once the queen of a legion, but now she's just one of the servants."

"Don't underestimate her." She tilted her head slowly to the right side. "She still has the craft and the artifice she needed to control her army and to make the right decisions in sticky situations. She's cleverer than you suppose her to be."

"She can't be smarter than me! I have the talents of both the humans and the Wraiths."

"Albeit she has that pathetic affection for her necklace, she's clear-sighted in most circumstances. Be careful with her."

Michael shook his head. "Let me handle it, I know her. Let me talk to her."

The queen beckoned with approval, and she walked back to her throne. "If this is what you want, I'm giving you my permission. Go, and talk to her."

Michael was already furious since his plan had gone awry because Rodney McKay and the soldiers escorting the scientist arrived at a different place, not where Michael had supposed them to arrive at, what was more, they had not been found yet, and now the mysterious returning of Claire made him even more troubled. _What __the __hell __can __that __sly __whore __be __up __to?_ He wondered, cursing loud, as he was thinking of the dubious plan she had made up for the city of Atlantis. _What __was __her __true __intention?_

When he arrived at the lot where the Darts were resting, he slowed down and he disguised his previous thoughts. Claire was waiting for him at the left-hand side of the puddle jumper; the metal surface was mirroring the unfathomable lines of her face.

"So you're back, are you?" Michael asked with perceptible sharpness in his voice.

"I am." It was her only response.

"How could you escape from the humans?" _I __made __sure __that __you __would __never __make __it __through_, he added in his thoughts ironically, _I __even __told __that __idiotic __doctor __that __you __were __the __one __to __blame __for __the __doom __of __his __friends..._

"They are as stupid and petty-minded as we have always suspected," she said quietly. "I easily found a way to leave."

Suddenly, the calmness disappeared from the face of the half-Wraith, and he pounced on her arms, dragging her after him across the narrow bridges connecting the Darts until they reached the entrance. He pushed her against the wall, making her head hit the frame.

"Did you think you could hide your pathetic plan from me?" he snapped at her. "You meant to help the humans! You tried to lead them aboard our hive!"

"Look at me," Claire replied coldly. "They even took away my necklace, the only thing I've ever cared for in my whole life - they destroyed it. You have no idea how much I hate them."

Michael turned his eyes to her bare neck, and his fury passed away instantly. "Oh, poor girl," he told her mockingly. "They took away your little treasure. What a pity. What can you do without it now?"

She gnashed her teeth. "You know how important it was for me," she said with loathing on her face, "And they took it away from me. You should believe me; I'd never do anything to help those bastards."

Michael knew very well how much she worshipped the pendant, and he felt sure now that she would never try to save Atlantis, if the humans were really dumb enough to destruct her beloved jewel. "You were once the queen of a Wraith legion," he whispered, "If there hadn't been that accidental crash of the two mother ships of your army in the northern battle, you would still be the leader of the greatest force in our alliance. I appreciate that you still keep on fighting, even though you lost everything in that unfortunate battle, but sometimes it makes me wonder what is really left for you..."

"The only thing that kept me alive was my necklace, otherwise I would have killed myself after the loss of my army like any other queen would have done in my place, but... but I had that jewel... It made me feel special. It was the only thing that mattered to me."

"Alright, I believe you," he told her silently, letting her free. His nails left bluish snicks in her skin, making thin blood-streams leak down on her arms. She did not show any sign of feeling the pain of it, she stepped next to the half-Wraith calmly.

"All I want is to see them suffer," she whispered, sneering. "Can you show me where you keep your captives? I want to see them get killed."

"Yes, you deserve a bit of fun," Michael smiled at her with the same cruelty. "If you wish, you can kill one of them with your own hands, I'll leave the pleasure of it to you. The others are mine."

She burst into a contented, mordant laughter, "I don't know how to thank you for your gratefulness. I can't wait to see their misery." She took away the stun gun from one of the guards standing in the doorway, and she followed Michael out of the lot for the Darts, along a shady, damp passage.


	28. Chapter 27: Even worse

**Chapter 27 – Even Worse**

Rodney McKay switched the last combination of buttons on the keyboard of his palmtop, and then he got up from beside the equipment.

"Now the program needs a minute to insert the virus into their system, plus an hour to carry out the self-destruction order and to destroy the super-hive," he explained to John.

"Okay, so... can we leave now?" Sheppard asked hopefully.

"Of course not," Rodney shook his head. "We need to guard this room until the virus finishes, otherwise some Wraith technician could overwrite my program and stop it."

"You mean that we have to wait here until either the Wraiths find us or we explode with the hive?"

"I guess so," Rodney made a wry face. "Haven't I told you many times that this mission was suicidal? You should've believed me; I'm always right about _everything_!"

"Okay, so this is our last hour left... Is there anything you'd like to confess me before dying?" John asked with a faint smile. "Maybe something about us..."

"No, not really," Rodney interrupted hastily. "I think we should simply talk about... er... astrophysics."

John was about to give a shrewd reply, but suddenly a sharp, piercing whistle became audible. It started to get louder and louder, echoing through the corridors.

"For heaven's sake, that's the alarm system!" Rodney shouted in panic. "They've found us."

John gulped. "We can't keep this room for an hour against plenty of Wraith soldiers," he said silently. "At best, we can stand up against them for a few minutes..."

"We have no other choice, we need to leave this place before they find us here," Rodney said with a grimace. "If they don't know which room and which computer we used to set up our trap, they'll need some time to figure it out. Come on, we have to go to another room."

"And leave the palmtop and the virus unguarded?" Sheppard protested.

"It's our last chance," Rodney shrugged. "Maybe they are stupid enough not to search for our equipment here. I know, I know, it's not very probable, Claire must have already informed them somehow about our plan. Still, I can't see anything else we can try."

They sneaked out of the room, and started to run towards another one, but as soon as they could reach it, armed Wraith soldiers appeared around the corner of the corridor. McKay and Sheppard both had evil forebodings, when they saw that the group of Wraith warriors was followed by Michael and Claire. The Wraiths surrounded them in a second, with their weapons pointing right at the two humans. Though Rodney and John tried to shoot at the enemies, they had to see that it did not really matter; they could not kill any of them. They had to hand over their weapons to Michael, who was smiling with disgusting triumph.

"I'm sure this is the perfect time for me to say that _I told you so_." Rodney patted John's shoulder.

"Told me _what_?" John's voice was sour.

"That we shouldn't have ever tried to follow a Wraith's plan and come here," he explained. "We should've let her die in the desert..."

"You've never told me this," Sheppard answered grumpily. "You only said that it was too risky to come here."

"Well, okay, but I said exactly these words in my thoughts," Rodney amended.

"So, am I a mind-reader or what?" John replied resentfully.

"I'm so sorry for interrupting your sweet quarrel," Michael broke their dispute off with an abominable sneer, "but I do think that we have much more important things to discuss. For example, where did you hide your palmtop? It's high time that we switched your pathetic virus program off."

Sheppard and McKay both stared at Claire with hatred and anger, realizing that she must have betrayed all the details of the plan. Her face remained calm, she did not even blink.

"How could this terrible monster escape from Atlantis?" Rodney asked, shocked, still looking at Claire.

"No idea," John admitted bitterly. "We should've never helped her; you are right about it, Rodney. We should've let her die..."

"Guess it's too late for regrets," Claire cut in with scorn.

"I'll escort them to a cell," Michael said, turning to her, gesturing towards the two captives. "Meanwhile, you go and switch off the idiotic virus program you wrote for these wretched humans."

Claire obediently turned away, and started to walk from room to room, searching for Rodney's palmtop. Michael signed for the warriors, and they forced McKay and Sheppard to follow the half-Wraith across the shady passages. When they reached an empty cell, Michael opened up the entrance, and pushed the humans into the small room.

"You'll need to wait only a while," he said with a gruesome glance. "I'm checking on the deletion of your virus program, and when I'm back, I'll choose for you a long and horrifying way to die."

He locked the cell, and started to leave with light, contented steps.

"I can't believe that Claire could be this heartless," Rodney lamented, sitting down onto the floor next to John. "Poor Carson, he trusted her so much. I feel sorry for him that she let him down so ignominiously."

Michael turned back from the corner. His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"What are you talking about?" he asked McKay.

"It's none of your business," Rodney answered, surprised at the question.

Michael's expression was still cagey. "You mean that _she_ and the doctor had any kind of a relationship?" he inquired.

McKay did not give any response. He did not like the evil gleam in the half-Wraith's eyes. Michael whipped around, and left the two humans there, sitting in their cell. Rodney ducked his head, feeling immense discomfort.

"Did I say something I shouldn't have?" he asked John. Sheppard just shook his head with incomprehension. They both sat in silence for a while.

"I think it's the perfect time for me to say..." Rodney begun, but John interrupted him.

"Please, not again! I know that _you told me so_..."

"No, no... I meant something else this time..." McKay replied with awkward shyness in his voice. "I... I just meant that... you were right about something... We should talk about _us_, before we die."

John did not notice the intonation of Rodney's words, so he protested against the sad content of the sentence.

"It's still possible that we can escape somehow. We might turn the tables on them," he answered.

"No, it's absolutely impossible."

"Don't give up. Ronon is still out there, maybe he can figure out something."

"Oh, sure," McKay replied with irony. "He can defeat the whole Wraith legion and explode this damned hive on his own!"

John saw that he perfectly ruined their previous topic, and now Rodney's possible confession turned into a useless argument. He despondently hung his head.

* * *

Michael stepped into the supplementary control room, slowly beating a tattoo on the doorframe with his bony fingers. Claire was sitting at a consol, typing on McKay's palmtop. The half-Wraith kept his eyes on her for a long minute, and then he asked her, "Why have you never shown me your memories about the doctor?"

"What doctor?" she asked detachedly.

"Doctor Beckett, one of the healers of Atlantis. You've never let me see your thoughts about him."

"I don't know whom you are talking about," she replied while she stopped editing the program, and she turned to Michael with a questioning look on her face. "I guess I don't show my thoughts about him because I don't know this doctor, and I have no thoughts about him at all."

"It's very strange," Michael gave his response, weighing every word he uttered. "I often met him when I was held at the infirmary of the Atlantisian city. How can it be that you never met him while you were heavily injured?"

"My wounds healed on their own, no one nursed me," she answered quickly.

"You were so seriously injured, I sensed it," the half-Wraith said with disbelief. "I'm sure you couldn't recover without medical help."

"Well, maybe he gave me some medicine or what, but while I was unconscious I could not see him, could I?" she retorted sarcastically. "I can't remember meeting a man called Doctor Beckett, that's all I can say."

"When I was talking to him through the communication system of our hive, I saw it on his face that he knew you better than what you are telling me now. When I told him about you, it affected him as much as the fact that his friends were about to die..."

"How could you see it on the face of a primitive human?" she shook her head. "Probably, he was just upset about his friends. It had nothing to do with me, I'm sure of that."

Michael rested his eyes on her; it was obvious from the way he looked at her that he did not trust her reply at all.

"I saw it," he seethed, "And I know what I saw!"

"Keep on cooking up stupid theories then, if it pleases you," she shrugged. She turned away from him calmly, and went on with the edition of the virus program.

"Stop hiding your thoughts from me," Michael demanded with rising anger. "I'm certain of that you know Doctor Beckett. Rodney McKay mentioned something about you and him!"

"That's your problem, if you can't make a distinction between useful information and stupid human lies." She was focusing on what she was typing at the keyboard.

"If I find out that you were untrue about this, I'll kill you," he answered viciously.

"For all I care!" She tossed her head back arrogantly. "You can't do a single thing to me that would affect me. So shut up and let me work, you freak."

Michael snarled. "You will be very sorry, if you try to mess with me."

She laughed outright. The half-Wraith wondered if he should kill her.

She finished editing the program. "I'm done," she said to him with a haughty smile on her face. "I made the virus program harmless. It's still lingering on in our systems, but it can never cause any damage. And now it's time for me to reap my reward." She got up from the computer. "I'm going to kill some of your captives, I guess I deserved it."

"Alright, you can kill Weir and the colonel, and I'll take the scientist and Sheppard," Michael nodded. "Have fun. Find them a terrible way to die."


	29. Chapter 28: Blood

**Chapter 28 – Blood**

Caldwell gently took Elizabeth's hands, and examined her fingers. Some of them were broken at the knuckles, he could see from the purple swelling and the way she was unable to move them. After he had watched her hands, he took a good look at her legs, at her burnt calves; he ran his fingers softly on the surface of the wounds. He saw with faint relief that at least those were not too serious, just superficial sores, only hurting the outer layer of her skin. She coughed up blood again, and her whole body shook from the pain as she fought for breath. He wondered if there was anything he could do to ease her pain and help her.

"I'm sorry," she sighed.

"Sorry for what?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm so sorry for being mean to you," she whispered, her violet-colored fingers tensed in his hands.

"No, no," he protested, "It wasn't you. It was me."

"I behaved so awfully... I'm sorry if I ever hurt you... You are such a good person; you have all my respect... I should've shown you..." Her voice was weak, nearly inaudible. "Will you, please, hug me?"

Caldwell leaned over to her, and slipped his arms carefully beneath her back, pulling her up into a tender embrace. He felt her heavily lifting and sinking bust pressing to his chest. She placed a quick, wet kiss on his chin; her lips left a red blood-stain. Caldwell turned his face down to hers, and kissed her on the forehead. The sad, desperate hug lasted for a long minute; but they parted, when they heard sudden footsteps from the corridor leading to their cell. A female Wraith was arriving, and started to talk with the guard at the end of the passage. As the dim lights fell on her pale, greenish face, they recognized Claire.

"What the hell is she doing here?" Caldwell asked quietly, anxiously holding Weir's trembling hands. Claire's triumphant, evil sneer predicted nothing good. She seemed to be joking about something with the guard, but Caldwell could not understand the Wraith communication, just the cruel smile on her face. Finally, the guard nodded obediently, and walked away, leaving Claire alone in the shady corridor. The colonel stepped protectively between the painfully coughing Elizabeth and the approaching Wraith. He was really surprised, when Claire lowered the stun gun in her hand, and swiftly switched the opening code at the lock panel of the cell. She hung her weapon next to the belt of her dark robe. She absolutely did not look like as if she was about to attack the two captives, so Caldwell stepped back and let her walk in.

"Are you both seriously wounded?" Claire asked.

"No, it's only her blood all over the place," Caldwell answered mournfully. He kneeled down next to Weir, and stroked her blood-stained, pale cheeks.

"You are free to go now," the Wraith said to Caldwell. "I'll show you where the Darts are, you can escape aboard one of them. She's too weak. You have to leave her here, since you can't do anything to save her."

"No. I'll either go with her or I won't try to escape at all," Caldwell said in a determined manner, leaving no doubts about the fact that he truly meant his words. He was about to help Weir up into a sitting position, but she did not seem to be fine with it.

"Leave me," Elizabeth said, hardly breathing. "I'm almost dead, it's no use trying to save me..."

"You'd better remain silent," Caldwell answered grumpily, carefully lifting her up in his arms. As he did so, the huge pool of blood covering the floor underneath Weir's tormented body became visible.

"We have no time to carry her to the Darts," Claire said with a frown. "It's a long way from here, it would kill her."

"We can't let her die," Caldwell answered quickly. "Please, find out something. Anything! Please!" He would have never believed that he would once stand aboard a hive and beg this desperately a Wraith to help.

Claire pondered over it for a second, and then she turned to him again. "I think Michael's laboratory is somewhere here. That moron made experiments on humans, and he has some human medicine, an operating-table and instruments there. If we can find it, you can try to save her life somehow."

Caldwell seemed very dumbfounded by the idea. "I'm not a doctor," he muttered.

"Neither am I." She shrugged. "You have still more clues about human anatomy and medical treatments than me. Come on, I'll show you the way, bring her quickly, if you really want to try to save her."

"It's not a good idea," he shook his head. "She needs operations or what, her lungs are about to collapse..."

"Then, you'll need to operate her."

"But I have no idea what to do. I can only kill her with it."

"Come on, we have no time to dramatize it," Claire impatiently signed for him to follow her. "She has only a few minutes left. You don't have enough time to carry her to the Darts, that distance would be too long for her. You either try to save her with Michael's medicines and instruments, or you can leave her here alone to die without trying a thing. I can't figure out any other options."

"Okay, okay, let's go to the lab," Caldwell nodded resignedly. He pressed Weir's shaking body to him, and followed the Wraith out of the cell.

* * *

Rodney and John waited in their cell nervously, trying to figure out what kind of horrors Michael had been planning for them.

"The worst thing is that we had the chance to kill this bastard, when he was in Atlantis, and we let him outsmart us, as well as we let this other monster, Claire live, only for getting us into more trouble then we already were," Rodney fumed.

"I still don't see, how she escaped from the city," John wondered. "She was well-guarded, her cell was indestructible... It's strange."

"Oh, I'm sure she acted very well, and she could somehow convince Carson to let her come here," McKay answered gloomily. "Maybe she said that she could help us, if she gets aboard the hive or something like this..."

"It doesn't sound very much like her," John shook his head. "She has never asked us to let her free, not even once. She has not asked us for anything at all, and never offered her help willingly. And even if she said things like that, Carson could not be so stupid to believe her."

"Okay, then maybe the shots of the super-hive caused an electric break-down in the city, and her cell opened on its own due to the failure. That's my last guess," Rodney said with a tired grimace. "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

"I bet it doesn't," Sheppard nodded. "We should worry about the fact that Michael may arrive in any minute, and then we have to face a terrifying torture and death, if we can't find a good plan to avoid it."

"You're the soldier," McKay remarked, "It's your turn to solve a situation like this."

"No, because if we want to open the lock of our cell, it's a technical problem, and that's your field," John responded, smiling.

"The lock panel is outside, I can't do a thing to it from the inside," The scientist retorted, "But if Michael steps in this place, you might try to fight him."

"He has a spear gun, but I have nothing," John said with a hopeless moan. "But if you really want to see me get killed first, I can try it..."

McKay stared at him. "Are you a fool or what?" he asked, half-shouting. "I was just joking. I know that you can't do anything to stop that monster. How can you even say that I want to see you get killed?"

"Okay, calm down, I was just kidding," John put his hand on Rodney's shoulder reassuringly.

"It's not funny," the scientist grumbled. He turned away from the soldier resentfully.

"I love you," Sheppard replied silently.

Rodney froze. "Er... what?" He turned back astonished.

"You did not hear it, or you just want me to repeat it?" John asked with a smile.

"Er... er... me... I just..." Rodney stammered. He had no idea what to say. His brain was working with incredible force to find a proper answer, but he just sat their dumbfounded instead, staring at John dully. When he finally realized, that he kept looking at the other man for at least five minutes in dumb silence, he cleared his throat, and tried to say something, anything, but he just succeeded in a sentence of "ers" and "wells" without the slightest meaning. Michael's arrival graciously solved the situation for him. The half-Wraith walked towards their cell with slow, self-assured steps, swinging his gun lazily in his right hand. The way he did that reminded John of something, but at that moment he could not recall what it was.

"Step away from the entrance," Michael told the humans. They reluctantly moved backwards, and he opened the lock panel, pointing his spear gun at the captives.

"Any last wishes? Any nice good-byes?" the half-Wraith asked sarcastically. "From now on, I only want to hear your painful screams, so if you have anything on your mind before I start, go ahead!"

"Is Elizabeth alright?" John inquired.

"Oh, I'm sure she isn't," Michael replied, and laughed viciously.

"Please, no! What did you do to her?" Rodney asked, feeling cold shudders running through his muscles.

"Me? I did nothing," Michael responded. His tone showed that he was mocking.

Claire appeared around the corner, and Michael turned to her.

"Did you kill them both?" he asked her. John and Rodney felt their heart skip a beat, as she lifted her hands up, and they caught sight of the red, human blood covering her fingers.

"Oh, no," McKay groaned, petrified, following with his eyes the blood-streams dripping from Claire's hands. John was unable to talk, just stared at the blood-drops.

"Very well," Michael whispered with a devilish smile. "Now you see what has happened to Weir," he turned to Sheppard, "But don't worry, you'll soon follow her."


End file.
